PR 4202 
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1909 
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BROWNING'S 
HORTER POEMS 



CUNLIFFE 



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Zbc Scribner English Classics 



EDITED BY 

FREDERICK H. SYKES, Ph.D. 

TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



ROBERT BROWNING 
SHORTER POEMS 



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Robert Browning 

From a copy righted photograph by Hollyer of the painting by G. F. Watts 



Cbe Scrflmer JBrxglieb Classics 



ROBERT BROWNING 



SHORTJEfi V PPEMS 



SELECTED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

JOHN WILLIAM CUNLIFFE, D. Lit. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1909 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 




Two Cooies Received 




JAN 20 1809 




Copyritftit Entry ■ 
BLASS ja- XXc, No, 


«, 



Copyright, 1909, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

BIBLIOGRAPHY vii 

INTRODUCTION: 

I. Biographical . ix 

II. Critical xxiii 

III. Order of Browning's Collected Poems . xxxii 
TEXT: 

Songs From "Pippa Passes," 1841 

"All Service Ranks the Same with God" . . 3 

"The Year's at the Spring" 3 

" Give Her But a Least Excuse to Love Me " . 4 

From "Dramatic Lyrics," 1842 
Cavalier Tunes- 
Marching Along 5 

Give a Rouse 6 

Boot and Saddle 7 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin 9 

My Last Duchess 20 

Count Gismond 22 

V Incident of the French Camp 28 

From "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics," 1845 
x^How They Brought the Good News from 

Ghent to Aix" 30 

The Italian in England 33 

The Lost Leader 39 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad 41 

i^Home Thoughts, from the Sea 42 

The Boy and the Angel 43 

The Glove 47 

Saul 54 

From "Men and Women," 1855 

V Love Among the Ruins 75 

J Evelyn Hope 79 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

-Up at a Villa — Down in the City 82 

A Woman's Last Word 87 

^ A Toccata of Galuppi's 90 

1 My Star 94 

Instans Tyrannus 95 

A Pretty Woman 98 

The Last Ride Together 102 

The Patriot 107 

Memorabilia 109 

Andrea del Sarto 110 

"DeGustibus— " 119 

The Guardian Angel . . v 121 

A Grammarian's Funeral ........ 124 

One Way of Love 129 

One Word More 130 

From "Dramatis Persons/ ' 1864 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 138 

Prospice 148 

V Youth and Art 150 

Apparent Failure 154 

From " Pacchiarotto . . . with other Poems," 
1876 

\/Herve Riel 157 

From "The Two Poets of Croisic," 1878 

Prologue 164 

Epilogue 164 

From "Dramatic Idyls," 1879-80 

s/ Pheidippides 170 

Echetlos 177 

Why I Am a Liberal, 1855, 1889 180 

From "Asolando," 1890 

Epilogue 181 

NOTES 183 

INDEX 219 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Introductions : 

Alexander, Corson, Arthur Symons (revised edition, London, 
1906). 

Reference Books: 

Cooke (Guide Book), Berdoe (Cyclopaedia), Sutherland-Orr 
(Handbook). 

Publications of the Browning Societies of London, Boston, 
and Chicago. 

Biographies: 

Chesterton, Dowden, Herford, Sharp, Sutherland-Orr (re- 
vised edition, 1908), Waugh. 

Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Edited by F. G. 
Kenyon. 

Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

Henry James. W. W. Story and His Friends. 

F. G. Kenyon. Robert Browning and Alfred Domett. 

E. Gosse. Personalia. 

General Criticism: 

Stopford Brooke. Robert Browning. 

James Fotheringham. Studies. 

Henry Jones. Browning as a Philosophical and Religious 
Teacher. 

Ethel M. Naish. Browning and Dogma. 

J. T. Nettleship. Essays. 

Arthur C. Pigou. Robert Browning as a Religious Teacher. 

W. Weatherford. Fundamental Religious Principles in 
Browning's Poetry (1907). 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

L— BIOGRAPHICAL 

F) OBERT BROWNING was born in Camberwell, a Lon- 
* *-' don suburb, in May, 1812. His father was a clerk in the 
Bank of England, a highly cultivated man, acquainted with 
foreign and classical, as well as English literature, himself a 
poet, and interested in music and art. His mother was de- 
scribed by Carlyle as " the true type of a Scottish gentlewoman "; 
she was a woman of strong religious convictions, and the home 
atmosphere was that of a cultivated Nonconformist family. 
The boy spent a happy childhood, surrounded by healthy and 
uplifting influences. In his poem Development, beginning — 

My father was a scholar and knew Greek, 

it is probable that he recalls some of the incidents of his early 
home training. He read extensively, especially the great Eliz- 
abethans, and at the age of twelve wrote verses after the style of 
Byron. But his poetic development dates from a day in May, 
1826, when his mother, at his request, brought him the works 
of Shelley and Keats. The spirit of revolt in Queen Mab took 
such hold of his youthful mind that for two years he was a 
vegetarian and professed atheist. His recovery did not shake 
his faith in his new-found seer, and the influence of Shelley is 
clearly discernible in his early work. In the little poem 
Memorabilia, and in the preface he wrote in middle life to some 
supposed letters of Shelley's which had been discovered, he 
pays a high tribute to the genius of his predecessor. 

Browning attended some classes at University College, Lon- 
don in continuation of his home education, and decided to 
devote himself to literature. His father not only left him free 

ix 



x BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

to make his own choice, but bore all the expenses of Paracelsus 
(1835), Sordello (1840), and Bells and Pomegranates (1841-6). 
It is pleasant to think that this generosity was appreciated by 
the youthful poet, who wrote of his father afterwards: — "It 
would have been quite unpardonable in my case not to have 
done my best. My dear father put me in a condition most 
favorable for the best work I was capable of. When I think 
of the many authors who have had to fight their way through all 
sorts of difficulties, I have no reason to be proud of my achieve- 
ments. My good father sacrificed a fortune to his convictions. 
He could not bear with slavery, and left India [the West Indies], 
and accepted a humble banking-office in London. He secured 
for me all the ease and comfort that a literary man needs to do 
good work. It would have been shameful if I had not done my 
best to realize his expectations of me." 

The publication of Browning's first work was, however, due 
to the generosity of an aunt, who heard that he had written a 
poem and offered to meet the expense of printing it. Pauline, 
the Fragment of a Confession was completed on October 22, 
1832, and published early in 1833, without the name of its- 
author. It is interesting for several reasons: in the first place, 
for its indebtedness to Shelley, which is everywhere apparent 
and is openly acknowledged; in the second place, for the evidence 
it gives of the interests which were then occupying Browning's 
mind; and in the third place, for its autobiographical character. 
Arnould, one of Browning's friends in early manhood, says that 
the poem reflects the author's "own early life as it presented 
itself to his own soul viewed poetically." Browning signed 
the poem "V. A. XX.," which he afterwards interpreted "vixi 
annos viginti" — "I have lived twenty years." — He was after- 
wards inclined to make fun of his youthful hero, and said five 
years later that the poem was "written in pursuance of a foolish 
plan I forget, or have no wish to remember; involving the assump- 
tion of several distinct characters; the world was never to guess 
that such an opera, such a comedy, such a speech, proceeded 
from the same notable person. Mr. V. A. was Poet of the party, 
and predestined to cut no inconsiderable figure. 'Only this 
crab' remains of the shapely Tree of Life in my Fool's Para- 



INTRODUCTION xi 

disc" Later in life he took a more lenient view of his youthful 
effort, and it is now included in the collected editions of his 
works. It was favorably reviewed by some of the leading 
critics of the day at the time of its appearance, though one 
notice described it briefly as "a piece of pure bewilderment, " 
— a foretaste of much misunderstanding of the same kind the 
poet was to meet with in after life. 

In the winter of 1833-4 Browning spent three months at St. 
Petersburg, nominally in the consular service, actually on the 
personal invitation of a friend who was consul-general at the 
Russian capital. His visit had effect in a five-act drama of 
Russian life, Only a Player Girl, written in 1842-3 and never 
published. His next important work, written during the six 
months preceding March, 1835, was Paracelsus — a study of the 
life and character of the famous sixteenth century physician, 
whose ideas had something in common with those of the Chris- 
tian Scientists and Theosophists of the present day. The poem 
is cast in dramatic form, though it is not, strictly speaking, a 
drama; it is chiefly remarkable for the expression of thoughts 
and views of life which Browning developed more clearly and 
fully in his maturer work. 

Paracelsus had important consequences. In the first place 
it was read by an older poet, already established in popular 
favor, Elizabeth Barrett, who recognized in it "the expression 
of a new mind." John Forster, a well-known man of letters of 
the time, pronounced it the work of " a man of genius,, who 
has in himself all the elements of a great poet, philosophical as 
well as dramatic. ,, It led, moreover, to Browning's introduc- 
tion to the great actor-manager of the day, Macready, and his 
invitation to be present at a supper given after the performance 
of a successful tragedy of the time — Talfourd's Ion. The 
toast of "The Poets of England " was proposed, and it was ex- 
pected that either Wordsworth or Walter Savage Landor would 
be called upon to respond to it, for both were present; but in- 
stead there arose an unknown young man whose name many of 
the company learned for the first time as that of Robert Brown- 
ing. In conversation after supper Macready said to the young 
poet, "Write me a play, and keep me from going to America, " — 



xii BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

that being apparently regarded by the great English actor as 
the last desperate resource to save his falling fortunes. It was 
agreed that same evening that the subject of the drama should 
be historical and English, and in accordance with the arrange- 
ment then made Strafford was written. It was produced on 
May 1, 1837 — just before Queen Victoria came to the throne. 
Macready himself took the leading part, and Helen Faucit 
(a delightful actress of Shakespearean heroines, who later be- 
came Lady Martin), achieved a brilliant triumph in the part of 
Lady Carlisle. The drama was successful, but not sufficiently 
so to restore the already ruined fortunes of Covent Garden 
Theatre. The withdrawal of one of the principal actors pre- 
cipitated a financial crisis, and the theatre was closed. The 
play was, however, judged of sufficient merit for Messrs. Long- 
man to publish it at their own expense, and the loss incurred 
fell, in this instance, upon the publishers, and not upon the 
poet himself, or his relatives. 

An incidental criticism of Paracelsus greatly affected the 
form of Browning's next work, Sordello, and ultimately injured 
his poetical reputation for a quarter of a century. Paracelsus 
was thought by some critics to be diffuse, and a charming 
Quakeress of the time, Caroline Fox, wrote to one of Brown- 
ing's friends, " Doth Mr. Browning know that Wordsworth will 
devote a fortnight or more to the discovery of a single word 
that is the one fit for his sonnet V In deference to these crit- 
icisms, Browning aimed in his next poem at the greatest possible 
condensation; "if an exclamation would suggest his meaning, 
he substituted this for a whole sentence." The result was a 
poem of very deep interest, but not at all easy to follow. Its 
difficulty is chiefly due to the extreme conciseness of the style, 
but partly to the unfamiliarity of the subject — the story of a 
mediaeval troubadour and predecessor of Dante, and the strife 
between the imperial and the papal or popular party in North 
Italy in the thirteenth century. Browning found in it an outlet 
for the expression of his political and religious, as well as his 
literary, aspirations, but at the time it failed almost altogether to 
be understood. The early Victorians with one accord made up 
their mind that it was incomprehensible. Mrs. Carlyle could 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

not, she said, make out whether the hero was a man, a city, or a 
book. Tennyson said he only understood two lines of it — the 
first — 

"Who will may hear Sordello's story told," 

and the last line — 

"Who would has heard Sordello's story told," 

and both were lies. The best story, however, of the British 
public's inability to appreciate Sordello is that told of Douglas 
Jerrold by Thomas Powell in his "Living Authors of England." 
The distinguished contributor to Punch was recruiting at 
Brighton after a long illness. In the course of his convalescence 
a parcel arrived from London which contained, among other 
things, this new volume of Sordello. The doctor had forbidden 
Jerrold the luxury of reading, but in the absence of his wife and 
her sister, who were nursing him, he indulged in the illicit en- 
joyment. A few lines put Jerrold in a state of alarm. Sentence 
after sentence brought no consecutive thought to his brain. At 
last the idea crossed his mind that in his illness his mental 
faculties had been wrecked. The perspiration rolled from his 
forehead, and smiting his head, he sat down on his sofa, crying, 
"O God, I am an idiot!" When his wife and her sister came 
back, he pushed the volume into their hands and demanded 
what they thought of it. He watched them intently while they 
read; at last his wife said, "I don't understand what the man 
means; it is gibberish." The delighted humorist sank back 
in his seat with a sigh of relief: "Thank God I am not an idiot! " 
In order to complete the studies for Sordello, which the poet 
had begun in the British Museum Library, he in 1838 paid his 
first visit to Italy. He went by sea from London to Venice, 
and on the voyage wrote two short poems included in this 
volume, Home Thoughts, from the Sea and "How They Brought 
the Good News from Ghent to Aix." The reception of Sordello, 
published after his return home, did not increase the publishers' 
confidence in his work, and he determined to issue his poems 
in a cheap form on his own responsibility. This was the origin 
of the Bells and Pomegranates series, cheap issues in yellow- 



xiv BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

paper wrappers, which were sold first at 12 cents, then at 
25 cents, and finally at 60 cents, but which can now hardly be 
had for as many dollars. The title refers to the bells and pome- 
granates which adorned the hem of the high priest's robe 
(Exodus xxvih. 34), and is explained by the poet to mean "a 
mixture of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry 
with thought." The series included all the early short poems, 
and all the dramas except Strafford. In his dramatic work 
Browning unfortunately got further and further away from 
actual connection with the stage, though two of his plays 
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and Colombes Birthday, have been 
successfully acted, both in England and America. The most 
delightful of these dramatic poems is Pippa Passes, which at 
once became popular. It is not properly speaking a drama, 
though it is so described by the author; it is rather a series of 
dramatic incidents connected by a strain of song. Browning 
was walking alone in a wood on the outskirts of London when 
the image flashed upon him of "someone walking thus alone 
through life; one apparently too obscure to leave a trace of his 
or her passage, yet exercising a lasting, though unconscious, 
influence at every step of it." This original conception is 
charmingly worked out in the character of Felippa or Pippa, 
the little silk winder of Asolo, a hill town in North Italy which 
had taken Browning's fancy during his first visit. Pippa is 
introduced in her humble room springing out of bed on her 
one holiday — New Year's Day, and singing the first of her songs, 
a selection from which has been here chosen as the best intro- 
duction to Browning for the reader who makes his first acquaint- 
ance with the poet through this volume. 

In this period of the early 'forties Browning was an active 
member of the younger literary set in London, already impress- 
ing those who knew him by his intense intellectual vigor. 
In 1844 Arnould writes to that other friend of Browning's (Al- 
fred Domett), celebrated by the poet as " Waring," and addressed 
in the concluding lines of The Guardian Angel: "Browning's 
conversation is as remarkably good as his books, though so 
different: in conversation anecdotical, vigorous, showing great 
thought and reading, but in his language most simple, ener- 



INTRODUCTION xv 

getic, and accurate. From the habit of good and extensive 
society he has improved in this respect wonderfully. We re- 
member him as hardly doing justice to himself in society; now 
it is quite the reverse — no one could converse with him without 
being struck by his great conversational power — he relates ad- 
mirably; in fact, altogether I look upon him as to be our fore- 
most literary man/' 

Before the publication of the Bells and Pomegranates series 
was completed, Browning had formed a tie which affected the 
whole current of his life and profoundly influenced his poetry. 
Elizabeth Barrett was six years his senior, and her precocious 
genius had already won her an established place in literature. 
Her weak health, due to an accident in saddling a pony when 
she was a girl, and her studies of Greek gave a touch of romance 
to her character which was exaggerated by popular report. 
She was described by a friend as reading almost every book 
worth reading in almost every language, and having a Greek 
text of Plato bound like a novel so as to deceive the family phy- 
sician. Yet she was entirely lovable in her gentle womanliness, 
and had nothing of the blue stocking in her disposition. Brown- 
ing had for some years admired her poetry, and she had in her 
published works expressed appreciation of his; but when in 
1841 a common friend, Mr. John Kenyon, took him to call upon 
her, she felt unable, on account of her weak health, to depart 
from her custom of not seeing strangers, and it was not until 
January, 1845, that, again at Kenyon's suggestion, Browning 
opened direct communication with her by means of a letter. 
"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett," 
he began, and later in the same letter he added, "and I love 
you too." Yet neither at this time had any thought of marriage, 
and when later in the year a meeting was followed by a pro- 
posal Miss Barrett decisively rejected it. Browning, however, 
persisted, and a secret engagement followed. Secrecy was neces- 
sary, for although Miss Barrett was forty years of age and had 
an independent income, she lived under a peculiar kind of 
paternal despotism. Her father was almost a religious mono- 
maniac, and would not tolerate any suitors for the hands of 
his daughters. "One admirable trait, however, Mr. Barrett 



xvi BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

did possess — he was nearly always away from home till 6 
o'clock." As the courtship proceeded Miss Barrett's health 
greatly improved, and in September, 1846, they were quietly 
married, leaving a few days after the ceremony for France and 
Italy. Mr. Barrett's comment was characteristic: "I have no 
objection to the young man, but my daughter should have been 
thinking of another world." He refused ever to see his daughter 
again. The marriage made a great sensation when it was an- 
nounced, for it was entirely unexpected. Wordsworth was 
startled into his one recorded jest: "So Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett have gone off together! Well, I hope they 
may understand each other — nobody else could." 

Fortunately they did understand each other: their mar- 
riage proved just what Milton says the poet's life should be — in 
itself "a true poem." Mrs. Browning left an abiding record 
of her happiness in the Sonnets from the Portuguese — certainly 
her best work, and among the finest love poetry in the English 
language. Browning's devotion to his wife finds fit expression 
in The Guardian Angel, One Word More, and Prospice — to 
mention only poems included in this volume. Mrs. Browning 
continued to gain strength, a son was born to her, they made 
many friends in Florence, where they chiefly resided, and in 
France and England, where they paid occasional visits. Out- 
side poetry, the chief interest of both was in the struggle for 
Italian liberty, expressed by Browning in The Italian in Eng- 
land, and by Mrs. Browning in numerous poems. Indeed, the 
death of the great Italian statesman and diplomatist, Cavour, 
who had done so much for Italian unity, had no small part in 
bringing about her own, which took place in June, 1861. 

The date is important, because it marks the end of the 
richest period in Browning's life. He did not produce so much 
as before — after his marriage there was a long silence till the 
publication of Christmas Eve and Easter Day in 1850, and five 
more years elapsed before Men and Women appeared; he pub- 
lished nothing else until after his wife's death. But in poetry 
it is quality, not quantity, that counts; and if from Browning's 
works one volume were to be selected for which, if necessity so 
demanded, all the rest should be sacrificed, it would be, in the 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

opinion of the majority of Browning readers, precisely this series 
of Men and Women. It will be seen that by far the larger pro- 
portion of the selections included in this volume are from 
Men and Women, and this is not a personal or accidental 
choice. It rests upon the practically unanimous opinion of 
Browning critics, one of whom says that this series " represents 
Browning's genius at its ripe maturity, its highest uniform level. 
In this central work of his career every element of his genius 
is equally developed, and the whole brought into a perfection 
of harmony never before or since attained." 

After the death of his wife, Browning left Florence, and 
never returned to it. He took a house in London, and gave his 
chief attention for some years to his son's education. After a 
while, he went out into society, and became one of the literary 
lions of the day. He received many honors from the univer- 
sities, and his work rose rapidly in public esteem. The change 
may perhaps be dated from the publication of The Ring and 
the Book in 1868-9, though there had been indications of it for 
some years before. The Ring and the Book is Browning's 
longest and, in some respects, his greatest work. Its subject is 
a seventeenth century story of the murder of an innocent girl 
by her husband, an account of which Browning found in an " old 
yellow Book" he picked up at a second-hand stall in Florence. 
The story is told over and over again, from the point of view 
of various persons concerned, and extraordinary skill is shown 
in the maintenance of the interest by the keenness of the char- 
acter analysis and the elevation of thought and expression. 
After its publication Browning's place in literature was abso- 
lutely secure. 

In the 'seventies Browning often spent his summer holi- 
days on the French coast, and there he found the subjects for 
some of the longer poems written during this period — Fifine 
at the Fair, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, and Two Poets of 
Croisic. He was in France at the outbreak of the Franco- 
Prussian war, and made his way to England with some diffi- 
culty on the approach of the Prussian invaders. His stirring 
ballad, Herve Riel (p. 157), was sold to the publishers of Corn- 
hill in 1871, and the proceeds given for the relief of sufferers 



xviii BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

by the siege of Paris. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau is a study 
of the character of Napoleon III, in which he had been inter- 
ested for many years on account of the part which the Emperor 
played in the liberation of Italy. La Saisiaz is the outcome of 
a visit to the Lake of Geneva in company with a friend who 
died there, Miss Anne Egerton Smith, to whose memory it is 
dedicated. These poems are largely psychological or meta- 
physical in character, and find no place in our selections with 
the exception of the charming lyrics which serve as prologue 
and epilogue to the Two Poets of Croisic. One great literary 
interest of his later years, the study of Greek literature and 
history, has its representatives in Pheidippides and Echetlos. 

Of Browning's daily life in London at this time the follow- 
ing account is given by Professor Dowden, the details being 
supplied by a Mr. Grove, who was for seven years in Brown- 
ing's service: — "Browning rose without fail at seven, enjoyed 
a plate of whatever fruit — strawberries, grapes, oranges — were 
in season; read, generally some piece of foreign literature, for 
an hour in his bedroom; then bathed; breakfasted — a light 
meal of twenty minutes; sat by the fire and read his Times and 
Daily News till ten; from ten to one wrote in his study or medi- 
tated with head resting on his hand. To write a letter was the 
reverse of a pleasure to him, yet he was diligent in replying to 
a multitude of correspondents. His lunch, at one, was of the 
lightest kind, usually no more than a pudding. Visits, private 
views of picture exhibitions and the like followed until half- 
past five. At seven he dined, preferring Carlo witz or claret to 
other wines, and drinking little of any. But on many days the 
dinner was not at home; once during three successive weeks he 
dined out without the omission of a day. He returned home 
seldom at a later hour than half-past twelve; and at seven next 
morning the round began again. During his elder years he 
took little interest in politics. He was not often a church-goer, 
but discussed religious matters earnestly with his clerical friends. 
He loved not only animals but flowers, and when once a Vir- 
ginia creeper entered the study window at Warwick Crescent, 
it was not expelled but trained inside the room. To his ser- 
vants he was a considerate friend rather than a master." 



INTRODUCTION xix 

Of the last period of Browning's life the most striking ex- 
ternal feature was his return to Venice and Asolo — the little 
hill village with which he had fallen in love on his first visit in 
1838. He and his sister entered into most friendly relations 
with an American resident at Venice, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, 
from whom they received many kindnesses. Their first ac- 
quaintance with her was in 1880, and when in 1881 they were 
again contemplating an autumn in Venice, she placed at their 
disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Guistiniani Recanati, 
which formed a supplement to her own house — "making the 
offer with a kindly urgency which forbade all thought of de- 
clining it. They inhabited these for a second time in 1885, 
keeping house for themselves in the simple but comfortable 
foreign manner they both so well enjoyed, only dining and 
spending the evening with their friend. But when, in 1888, 
they were going, as they thought, to repeat the arrangement, 
they found, to their surprise, a little apartment prepared for 
them under Mrs. Bronson's own roof. This act of hospitality 
involved a special kindness on her part, of which Mr. Brown- 
ing only became aware at the close of a prolonged stay; and a 
sense of increased gratitude added itself to the affectionate re- 
gard with which his hostess had already inspired both his sister 
and him. So far as he is concerned, the fact need only be indi- 
cated. It is fully expressed in the preface to Asolando. 

"Although the manner of his sojourn in the Italian city 
placed all the resources of resident life at his command, Mr. 
Browning never abjured the active habits of the English trav- 
eller. He daily walked with his sister, as he did in the moun- 
tains, for walking's sake, as well for the delight of what his ex- 
peditions showed him; and the facilities which they supplied 
for this healthful pleasurable exercise were to his mind one of 
the great merits of his autumn residences in Italy. He ex- 
plored Venice in all directions, and learned to know its many 
points of beauty and interest, as those cannot who believe it is 
only to be seen from a gondola; and when he had visited its 
every corner, he fell back on a favorite stroll along the Riva 
to the public garden and back again; never failing to leave the 
house at about the same hour of the day. Later still, when a 



xx BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

friend's gondola was always at hand, and air and sunshine were 
the one thing needful, he would be carried to the Lido, and take 
a long stretch on its farther shore." 1 

Browning retained to the end of his life the intellectual energy 
which had characterized his youth. In Venice he read the 
English papers, and kept up his interest in politics. He read 
the Italian papers too, and was fond of illustrating the gay and 
innocent life of the Venetians from the petty crimes reported in 
the newspapers of what some people described as "the wicked 
city" — the stealing of a gondolier's oars or the theft of linen 
from a clothes-line. He had many friends among the animals 
in the Public Garden, and fed them regularly every day. Only 
a year before his death, he wrote from Primiero to a friend: — 
" Did I tell you we had a little captive fox, — the most engaging 
of little vixens ? To my great joy she has broken her chain and 
escaped, never to be recaptured, I trust. The original wild 
and untamable nature was to be plainly discerned even in this 
early stage of the whelp's life: she dug herself, with such baby 
feet, a huge hole, the use of which was evident, when, one day, 
she pounced thence on a stray turkey — allured within reach by 
the fragments of fox's breakfast — the intruder escaping with 
the loss of his tail. The creature came back one night to ex- 
plore the old place of captivity — ate some food and retired." 

After the marriage of Browning's son ("Pen," as he still 
called him) to Miss Fannie Coddington of New York, they 
lived together in Venice on the Grand Canal at the Palazzo 
Rezzonico, which the young couple had bought for their per- 
manent home. In the autumn of 1889 Browning made an 
excursion to Asolo, where he thought of buying a piece of land 
and building a little house for himself to be called "Pippa's 
Tower." The one thing that disappointed him in Asolo was 
that the silk cultivation, with all the pretty girls who were en- 
gaged in it, had been transported to other places nearer the rail- 
way — "no more Pippas," he writes, "at least of the silk-winding 
sort," — but he was still delighted with the scenery and the view. 
On October 22nd he wrote to his brother-in-law of Asolo: — 
" It is an ancient city, older than Rome, and the scene of Queen 
1 Mrs. Orr's Life of Browning, revised by F. G. Kenyon. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

Catherine Cornaro's exile, where she held a mock court, with 
all its attendants, on a miniature scale; Bembo, afterwards 
Cardinal, being her secretary. Her palace is still above us all, 
the old fortifications surround the hilltop, and certain of the 
houses are stately — though the population is not above 1,000 
souls: the province contains many more of course. But the 
immense charm of the surrounding country is indescribable — 
I have never seen its like — the Alps on one side, the Asolan 
mountains all round — and opposite, the vast Lombard plain, 
— with indications of Venice, Padua, and the other cities, visible 
to a good eye on a clear day; while everywhere are sites of bat- 
tles and sieges of bygone days, described in full by the historians 
of the Middle Ages. 

" We have a valued friend here, Mrs. Bronson, who for years 
has been our hostess at Venice, and now is in possession of a 
house here (built into the old city wall) — she was induced to 
choose it through what I have said about the beauties of the 
place: and through her care and kindness we are comfortably 
lodged close by. We think of leaving in a week or so for 
Venice — guests of Pen and his wife; and after a short stay with 
them we shall return to London." 

This intention was, however, never fulfilled. The follow- 
ing month he was taken ill at Venice, and died on December 
12th in his son's house. The cemetery in which Mrs. Browning 
was buried at Florence had been closed, but a fitting home was 
found for his remains, along with other great poets of the 
English race, in Westminster Abbey. The city of Venice 
wished to show him the honor of a public funeral, of which 
the following account is given by his son, Mr. R. Barrett Brown- 
ing:— "A private service, conducted by the British Chaplain, 
was held in one of the halls of the Rezzonico. It was attended 
by the Syndic of Venice and the chief city authorities, as well 
as by officers of the Army and Navy. Municipal Guards lined 
the entrance of the Palace, and a Guard of Honor, consisting 
of City Firemen in full dress, stood flanking the coffin during 
the service, which was attended by friends and many residents. 
The subsequent passage to the mortuary island of San Michele 
was organized by the City, and when the service had been per- 



xxii BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

formed the coffin was carried by firemen to the massive and 
highly decorated funeral barge, on which it was guarded dur- 
ing the transit by four ' Uscieri ' in gala dress, two sergeants of 
the Municipal Guard, and two firemen bearing torches. The 
remainder of these followed in their boats. The funeral barge 
was slowly towed by a steam launch of the Royal Navy. The 
chief officers of the municipality, the family, and many others 
in a crowd of gondolas, completed the procession. San Michele 
was reached as the sun was setting, when the firemen again 
received their burden and bore it to the principal mortuary 
chapel." 

Browning's last volume, Asolando, with its beautiful and 
stirring Epilogue (p. 181) was published on the day of his 
death and he was able to receive by telegraph news of its fa- 
vorable reception by the reviewers to whom advance copies had 
been supplied by the publishers. A vast body of the foremost 
Englishmen of the day attended his funeral on the last day 
of the year when his body was laid to rest in the Poet's Corner 
to the strains of a special anthem arranged by Dr. Bridge, the 
Abbey organist, to the words of Mrs. Browning's poem, "He 
giveth his beloved sleep." 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 



II-CRITICAL 

The charge of obscurity has been urged so persistently against 
Browning that in any critical consideration of his works it 
is necessary to meet it at the outset. He was certainly not 
guilty of intentional obscurity. On this issue he himself is the 
best witness, and he is to be believed on his word. He wrote 
to an admirer who drew attention to this accusation: — "I can 
have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard 
for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; 
but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my 
critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended 
to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar 
or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the 
whole I get my deserts, and something over — not a crowd, but 
a few I value more." But an author may be obscure without 
intending it. He may fail to arrive at a clear and definite idea 
in his own mind of the conceptions he wishes to express — this 
is the most frequent cause of obscurity — or his expression of 
them may fail to convey his meaning to another, so that he 
leaves ambiguity or doubt, even in the mind of an intelligent 
reader. No diligent student of Browning can believe him 
guilty on the first count of the indictment. He can be under- 
stood; there are no dark places in his mind which it is impossi- 
ble to penetrate. On this point, the testimony of a brother poet, 
Mr. Swinburne, is of overwhelming weight. He says in his essay 
on Chapman: 

" If there is any great quality more perceptible than another 
in Mr. Browning's intellect, it is his decisive and incisive faculty 
of thought, his sureness and intensity of perception, his rapid 
and trenchant resolution of aim. To charge him with ob- 
scurity is about as accurate as to call Lynceus purblind, or 
complain of the sluggish action of the telegraphic wire. He is 
something too much the reverse of obscure; he is too brilliant 

xxiii 



xxiv BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

and subtle for the ready reader of a ready writer to follow 7 with 
any certainty the track of an intelligence wmich moves with such 
incessant rapidity, or even to realize with what spider-like 
swiftness and sagacity his building spirit leaps and lightens to 
and fro and backward and forward, as it lives along the ani- 
mated line of its labor, springs from thread to thread, and 
darts from centre to circumference of the glittering and quiver- 
ing w^eb of living thought, woven from the inexhaustible stores 
of his perception, and kindled from the inexhaustible fire of his 
imagination. He never thinks but at full speed; and the rate 
of his thought is to that of another man's as the speed of a rail- 
way to that of a waggon, or the speed of a telegraph to that of 
a railway." 

There is no question that Browning often demands of his 
reader a very considerable intellectual effort. Whether the 
effort is worth making, each reader must decide for himself; it 
depends largely upon the intellectual energy at his disposal. 
Brow r ning w r as himself a man of very extraordinary mental 
powers, and he sometimes failed to realize the difference in this 
respect between himself and his readers. Ruskin, for instance, 
found one of the poems in Men and Women difficult to under- 
stand, and wrote to Browrning to ask him about it. The poet 
in his reply said: 

"For your bewilderment more especially noted — how shall 
I help that ? We don't read poetry the same way, by the same 
law; it is too clear. I cannot begin writing poetry till my 
imaginary reader has conceded licenses to me which you de- 
mur at altogether. I know that I don't make out my con- 
ception by my language; all poetry being a putting the in- 
finite within the finite. You would have me paint it all plain 
out, w r hich can't be; but by various artifices I try to make 
shift with touches and bits of outlines which succeed if they 
bear the conception from me to you. You ought, I think, to 
keep pace with the thought tripping from ledge to ledge of my 
'glaciers,' as you call them; not stand poking your alpenstock 
into the holes, and demonstrating that no foot could have stood 
there; — suppose it sprang over there? In prose you may 
criticise so — because that is the absolute representation of por- 
tions of truth, what chronicling is to history — but in asking 
for more ultimates you must accept less mediates, nor expect 
that a Druid stone-circle w r ill be traced for you with as few breaks 
to the eye as the North Crescent and South Crescent that go 
together so cleverly in many a suburb." 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

It is these feats of mental agility, such as are described above, 
which appal the timid reader, but they are not always necessary. 
Some of Browning's poems are undoubtedly hard reading, but 
they are not all difficult, and it is unjust to condemn his work 
as a whole for what is true only of a part. Unfortunately 
readers of Browning often begin the study of his work at the 
wrong end. They take up Sordello, or Fifine at the Fair, or 
some of the shorter poems in which compression is pushed to 
its utmost limit and the transitions of thought are of lightning- 
like rapidity. Here the direction of a competent teacher may 
be of real service. If the student begins with some of the 
simpler and more direct poems, he will gradually become ac- 
customed to Browning's way of looking at things and his rapid 
leaps from point to point. A good plan is, working in con- 
nection with the biography and following in the main the 
chronological order of composition, to arrange the poems in 
groups. 

The following tentative scheme is suggested. Within the 
groups the easier and simpler poems are put at the beginning 
of each section: 

1. Early Lyrics: Songs from Pippa Passes. Cavalier Tunes. 
Home Thoughts, from Abroad. Home Thoughts , from the Sea. 

2. Romances: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. "How They 
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Incident of the 
French Camp. Count Gismond. Herve Kiel. Pheidippides 
Echetlos. The Glove. The Patriot. Memorabilia. 

3. Poems of Italy: My Last Duchess. The Italian in 
England. A Toccata of Galuppi's. Up at a Villa — Down in 
the City. "De Gustibus —." 

4. Love Poems: Love Among the Ruins. Evelyn Hope. 
A Woman's Last Word. My Star. The Last Ride Together. 
A Pretty Woman. One Way of Love. Youth and Art. Pro- 
logue to The Two Poets of Croisic. One Word More. 

5. Poems on Art: The Guardian Angel. Andrea del Sarto. 
Epilogue to The Two Poets of Croisic. 

6. Browning's Liberalism: The Lost Leader. Instans 
Tyrannus. Why I Am a Liberal. 



xxvi BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

7. Poems on Religion: The Boy and the Angel. Saul. 
A Grammarian's Funeral. Rabbi ben Ezra. Prospice. Ap- 
parent Failure. Epilogue to Asolando. 

An alternative reading list for more advanced students might 
follow some such scheme as this: 

1. Early Songs and Stories: Songs from Pippa Passes. 
Cavalier Tunes. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. My Last 
Duchess. Count Gismond. Incident of the French Camp. 
"How They Brought the Good Neivs from Ghent to Aix." The 
Italian in England. The Lost Leader. Home Thoughts, from 
Abroad. Home Thoughts, from the Sea. The Glove. 

2. Selections from "Men and Women" (Chiefly Love 
Poems): Love Among the Ruins. Evelyn Hope. Up at a 
Villa — Down in the City. A Woman's Last Word. Instans 
Tyrannus. A Pretty Woman. The Last Ride Together. The 
Patriot. Memorabilia. " De Gustibus — ." A Grammarian's 
Funeral. One Way of Love. 

3. Poems on Art and Music: Andrea del Sarto. The 
Guardian Angel. A Toccata of Galuppi's. 

4. Poems on Religion: The Boy and the Angel. Saul. 
Rabbi ben Ezra. 

5. Later Lyrics and Narrative Poems: Youth and Art. 
Apparent Failure. Herve Riel. Prologue and Epilogue to The 
Two Poets of Croisic. 

6. Greek Poems: Pheidippides. Echetlos. 

7. Poems of Personal Interest: My Star. One Word 
More. Prospice. Why I Am a Liberal. Epilogue to Asolando. 

In schools where this little volume may be used as an intro- 
duction to the study of Robert Browning, the prudent teacher 
will exercise discretion in the choice of the poems he attempts 
in class. The pupils should be instructed to read each poem 
rapidly at first, to get a general idea of its drift and purpose, 
and then carefully once or twice more, to understand the pre- 
cise significance of each phrase, word, and even punctuation 
mark, for in Browning everything tells; "if an exclamation will 
serve his purpose, he substitutes it for a whole sentence." 
More advanced pupils may be led to consider Browning's work 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

historically, in its relation to the Romantic Revival, for it is 
important to realize that he does not stand apart from the 
general poetic development of the century, but in close con- 
nection with it. Comparisons may be suggested with Words- 
worth and Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. In a few valuable 
pages at the end of the introductory chapter of Professor Her- 
ford's Age of Wordsworth it is pointed out that while these 
four poets were all masters of that region in which Romance and 
Nature meet, they lacked vision for the world of man save 
under certain broad and simple aspects — the patriot, the 
peasant, the visionary, the child. Wordsworth recognized the 
"Wisdom and Spirit of the universe" through communion 

Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man, 
But with high objects, with enduring things, 
With life and nature. 

He learnt indeed 

To look on nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 

The still, sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean, and the living air, 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. 

But Wordsworth's poetic sympathy was much less catholic in 
practice than in theory. He was still " a lover of the meadows 
and the woods and moun tains"; but the din of towns and cities 
was only a reminder to him of " the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world." To Shelley "this populous 
earth" was a prison, from which he fled for refuge to the far- 
away haunts of his own imaginings. In death alone he saw 
the hope of realizing 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move. 



xxviii BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

This is the thought that lies at the kernel of his magnificent 
vindication of divine beauty: 

The One remains, the many change and pass; 

Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly; 

Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 

Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 

Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! 

Browning, with his superb optimism, spoke of himself, even 
in face of bitter personal bereavement, as one who "both lives 
and likes life's way." The world's darkest tragedies and most 
shocking failures left him undaunted: 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accursed. 

"You are not a lover of Nature, Mr. Browning," a lady said 
to him one day. "Yes, but I love human nature better," he 
replied. — 

Man's thoughts and loves and hates! 
Earth is my vineyard, these grew there. 

While the earlier poets of the century are the poets of Nature 
and the Supernatural, Browning is above all the poet of human 
nature and the natural. In this little volume, limited in range 
as well as in size, it is, of course, impossible to illustrate the 
wealth of Browning's endless gallery of human souls. He was 
the first poet since Shakespeare to create a world of living men 
and women, with hopes and fears, passions and perplexities, 
familiar to the people of his own day. 

" There is scarcely a salient epoch in the history of the mod- 
ern world which he has not touched, always with the same 
vital and instinctive sympathy based on profound and accu- 
rate knowledge. Passing by the legendary and remote ages 
and civilisations of East and West, he has painted the first 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

dawn of the modern spirit in the Athens of Socrates and Eurip- 
ides, revealed the whole temper and tendency of the twilight 
age between Paganism and Christianity, and recorded the 
last utterance of the last apostle of the now-conquering creed; 
he has distilled the very essence of the Middle Ages and the 
Renaissance, the very essence of the modern world. The men 
and women who live and move in that new world of his cre- 
ation are as varied as life itself; they are kings and beggars, 
saints and lovers, great captains, poets, painters, musicians, 
priests and popes, Jews, gipsies and dervishes, street-girls, 
princesses, dancers with the wicked witchery of the daughter of 
Herodias, wives with the devotion of the wife of Brutus, joyous 
girls and malevolent greybeards, statesmen, cavaliers, soldiers 
of humanity, tyrants and bigots, ancient sages and modern 
spiritualists, heretics, scholars, scoundrels, devotees, rabbis, 
persons of quality and men of low estate, men and women as 
multiform as nature or society has made them. He has found 
and studied humanity, not only in English towns and villages, 
in the glare of gaslight and under the open sky, but on the 
Roman Campagna, in Venetian gondolas, in Florentine streets, 
on the Boulevards of Paris and in the Prado of Madrid, in the 
snow-bound forests of Russia, beneath the palms of Persia 
and upon Egyptian sands, on the coasts of Normandy and 
the salt plains of Brittany, among Druses and Arabs and 
Syrians, in brand-new Boston and amidst the ruins of Thebes.' ' 

Walter Pater, commenting on the above criticism by Mr. 
Symons, remarks: 

"Imaginatively, indeed, Mr. Browning has been a mulitude 
of persons; only (as Shakespeare's only untried style was the 
simple one), almost never simple ones; and certainly he has 
controlled them all to profoundly interesting artistic ends by 
his own powerful personality. The world and all its action, 
as a show of thought, that is the scope of his work. It makes 
him pre-eminently a modern poet — a poet of the self-ponder- 
ing, perfectly educated modern world, which, having come to 
the end of all direct and purely external experiences, must 
necessarily turn for its entertainment to the world within." 

The age of Shakespeare, indeed, differed profoundly from the 
Victorian era. The former was above all an age of action 
and external interests. The imagination of the Elizabethans 
stretched out to the New World and the mighty destinies opened 
up to the nation by the victory over the Spanish Armada. It 
was an age of confident and victorious enterprise, of single 



xxx BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

aims, and simple issues. The age of Browning was far more 
complex; the problems it had to face were not problems of 
conquest and adventure, but of social organization, of political 
reform, and of the adjustment of religious beliefs to the changes 
demanded by philosophy and science. Browning has not 
Shakespeare's ease and sureness of touch in matters of faith 
and conscience; the problems of life present themselves to the 
modern poet in a more complex form, and his characters look 
at them in a different way. Even Hamlet, with all his tendency 
to hesitation and meditation, is a man of action, as are all the 
other Shakespearean heroes and villains; but Browning's 
people, from Pauline's lover to Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 
are inordinately given to self-analysis. This is indeed what 
interests Browning — not what his people do, but what they 
think; and the succession of thought traced in the mind of 
another man must always be a difficult business for a reader 
to follow. Men's actions we can see and judge, in some im- 
perfect fashion, but the motives which lie behind these actions 
are deeply hidden and intermingled. This complex problem 
interested Browning intensely, and he analyzed it with supreme 
skill, but such analysis is never likely to hold the attention of the 
average reader. He might have said of all his poems what he 
said of one — "my stress lay on the incidents in the development 
of a soul: little else is worth study." In this he is the child of 
his time, which was, like him, analytic rather than constructive; 
with all the robustness of his religious faith, and the healthy 
optimism of his outlook on life, he is intellectually an enquirer, 
a questioner, especially in his last period, even a doubter. 

But these are high considerations. Browning's philosophy 
is not for school children; and yet even youthful minds can enjoy 
readily and easily the story and art of many of his poems, if 
they are encouraged to undertake the study of them in a simple, 
natural fashion, and enjoyment should go along with compre- 
hension. As each poem is studied, the questions must at once 
be asked: What is the situation the poem sets forth? Who is 
the person speaking? Who is the person spoken to? the 
person spoken of? All readers will find difficult passages 
that need explanation, but even young people who give thought 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

to their reading should, under right guidance, get the full mean- 
ing out of the simpler ones. The full significance of a par- 
ticular turn of phrase, interruption, or ejaculation may easily 
be missed, and it is an excellent training in accuracy and obser- 
vation to fulfil the obligation Browning lays upon his readers — 
that they must read carefully and attentively. 

While some hints and some help have been given in the notes 
in this regard, much has been left for the teacher and the student 
to do as the occasion or their own discretion may suggest. 
The editor has sought to give only reasonable assistance in 
a study of Browning which will be found all the more stimu- 
lating and delightful, because everything is not cut and dried, 
but much remains to be discovered, explained, and discussed. 



xxxii BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



III— ORDER OF BROWNING'S 
COLLECTED POEMS 

The following table gives the dates at which Browning's col- 
lected poems were originally published. Selections included 
in this volume are given in brackets: — 
1833. Pauline. 
1835. Paracelsus. 
1837. Strafford. 

1840. Sordello. 

1841. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 1. — Pippa Passes. [Songs.] 

1842. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 2. — King Victor and King 

Charles. 

1842. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 3. — Dramatic Lyrics. [Cav- 

alier Tunes, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, My Last 
Duchess, Count Gismond, Incident of the French Camp.] 

1843. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 4. — The Return of the 

Druses. 

1843. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 5. — A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. 

1844. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 6. — Colombe 's Birthday. 

1845. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 7. — Dramatic Romances and 

Lyrics. ["How They Brought the Good News from 
Ghent to Aix," The Italian in England, The Lost Leader, 
Home Thoughts, from Abroad, Home Thoughts, from 
the Sea, The Boy and the Angel, The Glove, Saul.] 

1846. Bells and Pomegranates, No. 8. — Luria; and A Soul's 

Tragedy. 

1850. Christmas Eve and Easter Day. 

1855. Men and Women. [Love among the Ruins, Evelyn 
Hope, Up at a Villa — Down in the City, A Woman s 
Last Word, A Toccata of Galuppi's, My Star, Instans 
Tyrannus, A Pretty Woman, The Last, Ride Together, 
The Patriot, Memorabilia, Andrea del Sarto, "De 
Gustibus — ," The Guardian Angel, A Grammarian's 
Funeral, One Way of Love, One Word More.] 
xxxii 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

1864. Dramatis Persona. [Rabbi ben Ezra, Prospice, Youth 

and Art, Apparent Failure.] 
1868-9. The Ring and the Book. 
1871. Balaustion's Adventure. 

1871. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau. 

1872. Fifine at the Fair. 

1873. Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 
1875. Aristophanes' Apology. 

1875. The Inn Album. 

1876. Pacchiarotto, with Other Poems. [Herve Riel.] 

1877. The Agamemnon of AZschylus. 

1878. La Saisiaz. The Two Poets of Croisic. [Prologue and 

Epilogue.] 

1879. Dramatic Idyls. [Pheidippides.] 

1880. Dramatic Idyls. Second Series. [Echetlos.] 

1883. Jocoseria. 

1884. Ferishtah's Fancies. 

1887. Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their 

Day. 
1890. Asolando. [Epilogue.] 



BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS. 



BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



SONGS FROM "PIPPA PASSES " 



"all service ranks the same with god" 

All service ranks the same with God: 

If now, as formerly he trod 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we; there is no last nor first. 



II 



"the year's at the spring" 



The year's at the spring 
And day's at the morn; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill-side's dew-pearled; 
The lark's on the wing; 
The snail's on the thorn: 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world! 
3 



BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

in 

"give her but a least excuse to love me" 

Give her but a least excuse to love me! 
When — where — 

How — can this arm establish her above me, 
If fortune fixed her as my lady there, 
There already, to eternally reprove me? 5 

("Hist!" — said Kate the Queen; 
But "Oh!" — cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
"'Tis only a page that carols unseen, 
Crumbling your hounds their messes!") 

Is she wronged? — To the rescue of her honor, 10 

My heart! 

Is she poor? — What costs it to be styled a donor? 

Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! 

("Nay, list!" — bade Kate the Queen; 15 

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 

"'Tis only a page that carols unseen, 

Fitting your hawks their jesses!") 

(1841). 



CAVALIER TUNES 

I 

MARCHING ALONG 

I 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 5 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

ii 

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries I 

Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup, 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 10 

Till you're— ' 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong. 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

hi 

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell 
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! 15 

5 



6 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

England, good cheer! Rupert is near! 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here 

Chorus — Marching along, fifty -score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? 

IV 

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls 20 

To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles! 
Hold by the right, you double your might; 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 

Chorus — March we along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song! 



II 

GIVE A ROUSE 



King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 

11 

Who gave me the goods that went since? 5 

Who raised me the house that sank once? 
Who helped me to gold I spent since? 
Who found me in wine you drank once? 

Chorus — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 

King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 10 



CAVALIER TUNES 7 

Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 

in 

To whom used my boy George quaff else, 

By the old fool's side that begot him ? 

For whom did he cheer and laugh else 15 

While Noll's damned troopers shot him? 

Chorus — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 



Ill 

BOOT AND SADDLE 



Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray, 

Chorus — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 



11 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; 
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray 
" God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 

Chorus — "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 



8 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

in 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, 

Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array, 10 

Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 

Chorus — "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

IV 

Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay, 

Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay! 

I've better counsellors; what counsel they? 15 

Chorus — "Boot, saddle, to liorse, and away!" 

(1842). 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

A Child's Story 
(Written for, and inscribed to W. M. the Younger) 



Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, 

By famous Hanover city; 
The river Weser, deep and wide, 
Washes its walls on the southern side; 
A pleasanter spot you never spied; 5 

But, when begins my ditty, 
Almost five hundred years ago, 
To see the townsfolk suffer so 

From vermin, was a pity. 

11 

Rats ! 10 

They fought the dogs and killed the cats, 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles, 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 15 

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women's chats 

By drowning their speaking 

With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 

9 



10 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

in 

At last the people in a body 

To the Town Hall came flocking: 
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy; 

And as for our Corporation — shocking 
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 25 

For dolts that can't or won't determine 
What's best to rid us of our vermin! 
You hope, because you're old and obese, 
To find in the furry civic robe ease! 
Rouse up, sirs! give your brains a racking 30 

To find the remedy we're lacking, 
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!" 
At this the Mayor and Corporation 
Quaked with a mighty consternation. 

IV 

An hour they sat in council; 35 

At length the Mayor broke silence: 
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, 

I wish I were a mile hence! 
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain — 
I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 

I've scratched it so, and all in vain. 
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap! " 
Just as he said this, what should hap 
At the chamber door but a gentle tap ? 
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?" 45 

(With the Corporation as he sat, 
Looking little though wondrous fat; 
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 11 

Than a too-long-opened oyster, 

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 

For a plate of turtle green and glutinous ) 

"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat? 

Anything like the sound of a rat 

Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " 



"Come in!" — the Mayor cried, looking bigger: 55 

And in did come the strangest figure! 

His queer long coat from heel to head 

Was half of yellow and half of red, 

And he himself was tall and thin, 

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 

With light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, 

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, 

But lips where smiles went out and in; 

There was no guessing his kith and kin: 

And nobody could enough admire 65 

The tall man and his quaint attire. 

Quoth one: "It's as my great grandsire, 

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone ! " 

VI 

He advanced to the council-table: 70 

And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able, 
By means of a secret charm, to draw 

All creatures living beneath the sun, 

That creep or swim or fly or run, 
After me so as you never saw ! 75 

And I chiefly use my charm 



12 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

On creatures that do people harm, 

The mole and toad and newt and viper; 

And people call me the Pied Piper." 

(And here they noticed round his neck 80 

A scarf of red and yellow stripe, 
To match with his coat of the self -same cheque: 

And at the scarfs end hung a pipe; 
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying, 
As if impatient to be playing 85 

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 
Over his vesture so old-fangled. ) 
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am, 
In Tartary I freed the Cham, 

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; 90 

I eased in Asia the Nizam 

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats : 
And as for what your brain bewilders, 
If I can rid your town of rats 

Will you give me a thousand guilders ? " 95 

' ' One ? fifty thousand ! " — was the exclamation 
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 

VII 

Into the street the Piper stept, 

Smiling first a little smile, 
As if he knew what magic slept 100 

In his quiet pipe the while; 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; 105 

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 13 

You heard as if an army muttered ; 

And the muttering grew to a grumbling; 

And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; 

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. no 

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 

Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 

Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 115 

Families by tens and dozens, 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped advancing, 
And step for step they followed dancing, 120 

Until thev came to the river Weser, 

Wherein all plunged and perished! 
— Save one, who, stout as Julius Csesar, 
Swam across and lived to carry 

(As he, the manuscript he cherished) 125 

To Rat-land home his commentary: 
Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 
And putting apples, wondrous ripe, 
Into a cider-press's gripe; 130 

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, 
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, 
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks : 
And it seemed as if a voice 135 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 
Is breathed) called out, 'Oh rats, rejoice! 

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! 



14 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,' 

Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!' 140 

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, 

Already staved, like a great sun shone 

Glorious scarce an inch before me, 

Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!' 

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 145 

VIII 

You should have heard the Hamelin people 

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 

"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, 

Poke out the nests and block up the holes! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 

And leave in our town not even a trace 

Of the rats!" — when suddenly, up the face 

Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 

With a, ' l First, if you please, my thousand guilders ! " 

IX 

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; 155 

So did the Corporation too.. 

For council dinners made rare havoc 

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; 

And half the money would replenish 

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gypsy coat of red and yellow ! 

"Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, 

"Our business was done at the river's brink; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 165 

And what's dead can't come to life, I think. 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 15 

So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something for drink, 

And a matter of money to put in your poke; 

But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. 

A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty !" 



The Piper's face fell, and he cried, 

"No trifling! I can't wait! beside, 175 

I've promised to visit by dinner-time 

Bagdat, and accept the prime 

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, 

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: 180 

With him I proved no bargain-driver, 

With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! 

And folks who put me in a passion 

May find me pipe after another fashion." 

XI 

"How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook 185 

Being worse treated than a Cook ? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 

You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, 

Blow your pipe there till you burst!" 190 

XII 

Once more he stept into the street, 
And to his lips again 



16 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane; 
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 195 

Never gave the enraptured air) 
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling; 
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 200 
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is 

scattering, 
Out came the children running. 
All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 205 

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

XIII 

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 

As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 

Unable to move a step, or cry 210 

To the children merrily skipping by, 

— Could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crow T d at the Piper's back. 

But how the Mayor was on the rack, 

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 215 

As the Piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 

And after him the children pressed; 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 17 

Great was the joy in every breast. 
"He never can cross that mighty top! 
He's forced to let the piping drop 

And we shall see our children stop ! " • 225 

When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side, 
A wondrous portal opened wide, 
As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed ; 
And the Piper advanced and the children fol- 
lowed, 
And when all were in to the very last, 230 

The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 
Did I say, all ? No ! One was lame, 

And could not dance the whole of the way; 
And in after years, if you would blame 

His sadness, he was used to say, — 235 

"It's dull in our town since my playmates left! 
I can't forget that I'm bereft 
Of all the pleasant sights they see, 
Which the Piper also promised me. 

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 

Joining the town and just at hand, 
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew 
And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 
And everything was strange and new; 
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 245 

And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 
And honey-bees had lost their stings, 
And horses were born with eagles' wings : 
And just as I became assured 

My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 

The music stopped and I stood still, 
And found myself outside the hill, 



18 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Left alone against my will, 

To go now limping as before, 

And never hear of that country more ! " 255 

XIV 

Alas, alas for Hamelin! 

There came into many a burgher's pate 

A text which says that heaven's gate 

Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 

The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, 
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, 

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
Silver and gold to his heart's content, 
If he'd only return the way he went, 265 

And bring the children behind him. 
But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor, 
And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, 
They made a decree that lawyers never 

Should think their records dated duly 270 

If, after the day of the month and year, 
These words did not as well appear, 
— "And so long after what happened here 

On the Twenty-second of July, 
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:" 275 

And the better in memory to fix 
The place of the children's last retreat, 
They called it the Pied Piper's Street — 
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 
Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 

To shock with mirth a street so solemn : 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 19 

But opposite the place of the cavern 

They wrote the story on a column, 
And on the great church-window painted 285 

The same, to make the world acquainted 
How their children were stolen away, 
And there it stands to this very day. 
And I must not omit to say 

That in Transylvania there's a tribe 290 

Of alien people who ascribe 
The outlandish ways and dress 
On which their neighbors lay such stress, 
To their fathers and mothers having risen 
Out of some subterraneous prison 295 

Into which they were trepanned 
Long time ago in a mighty band 
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, 
But how or why, they don't understand. 

xv 

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers ! 
And, whether they pipe us free from rats or 

from mice, 
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our 



promise ! 



(1842) 



MY LAST DUCHESS 



----v 



FERRARA 

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive. I call 
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf s hands 
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 6 

"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read 
Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 
The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 
But to myself they turned (since none puts by 
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I ) 10 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 
How such a glance came there; so, not the first 
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 
Her husband's presence only, called that spot 
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps 15 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps 
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint 
Must never hope to reproduce the faint 
Half-flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff 
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 
A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad, 
Too easily impressed; she liked what e'er 
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 
Sir, 't was all one! My favor at her breast, 25 

20 



MY LAST DUCHESS 21 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but 

thanked 
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 35 

In speech — (which I have not ) — to make your will 
Quite clear to such an one, and say, l ' Just this 
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, 
Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let 
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 
— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, 
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 
Much the same smile ? This grew; I gave commands; 45 
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 
As if alive. Will 't please you rise ? We'll meet 
The company below, then. I repeat, 
The Count your master's known munificence 
Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 55 

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! 



COUNT GISMOND 

AIX IN PROVENCE 
I 

Christ God who savest man, save most 
Of men Count Gismond who saved me! 

Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, 
Chose time and place and company 

To suit it; when he struck at length 5 

My honor, 't was with all his strength. 

ii 

And doubtlessly ere he could draw 

All points to one, he must have schemed ! 

That miserable morning saw 

Few half so happy as I seemed, 10 

While being dressed in queen's array 

To give our tourney prize away. 

in 

I thought they loved me, did me grace 

To please themselves; 't was all their deed; 

God makes, or fair or foul, our face; 15 

If showing mine so caused to bleed 

My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped 

A word, and straight the play had stopped. 

22 " 



COUNT GISMOND 23 

IV 

They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen 

By virtue of her brow and breast; 20 

Not needing to be crowned, I mean, 

As I do. E'en when I was dressed, 
Had either of them spoke, instead 
Of glancing sideways with still head ! 



But no: they let me laugh, and sing 25 

My birthday song quite through, adjust 
The last rose in my garland, fling 

A last look on the mirror, trust 
My arms to each an arm of theirs, 
And so descend the castle-stairs — 30 

VI 

And come out on the morning-troop 

Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, 
And called me queen, and made me stoop 

Under the canopy — (a streak 
That pierced it, of the outside sun, 35 

Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun) — 

VII 

And they could let me take my state 

And foolish throne amid applause 
Of all come there to celebrate 

My queen's-day — Oh, I think the cause 40 

Of much was, they forgot no crowd 
Makes up for parents in their shroud ! 



24 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

VIII 

Howe'er that be, all eyes were bent 

Upon me, when my cousins cast 
Theirs down; 't was time I should present 45 

The victor's crown, but ... there, 't will last 
No long time ... the old mist again 
Blinds me as then it did. How vain! 

IX 

See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk 

With his two boys: I can proceed. 60 

Well, at that moment, who should stalk 

Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — 
But Gauthier, and he thundered, "Stay!" 
And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I say! 



"Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet 65 

About her ! Let her shun the chaste, 
Or lay herself before their feet! 

Shall she whose body I embraced 
A night long, queen it in the day? 
For honor's sake no crowns, I say!" 60 

XI 

I ? What I answered ? As I live, 

I never fancied such a thing 
As answer possible to give. 

What says the body when they spring 
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole 65 

Strength on it ? No more says the soul. 



COUNT GISMOND 25 

XII 

Till out strode Gismond; then I knew 

That I was saved. I never met 
His face before, but, at first view, 

I felt quite sure that God had set 70 

Himself to Satan; who would spend 
A minute's mistrust on the end ? 

XIII 

He strode to Gauthier, in his throat 

Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth 
With one back-handed blow that wrote 75 

In blood men's verdict there. North, South, 
East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, 
And damned, and truth stood up instead. 

XIV 

This glads me most, that I enjoyed 

The heart of the joy, with my content 80 

In watching Gismond unalloyed 

By any doubt of the event: 
God took that on him — I was bid 
Watch Gismond for my part: I did. 

xv 

Did I not watch him while he let 85 

His armorer just brace his greaves, 
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret 

The while ! His foot . . . my memory leaves 
No least stamp out, nor how anon 
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. 90 



26 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

XVI 

And e'en before the trumpet's sound 
Was finished, prone lay the false knight, 

Prone as his lie, upon the ground : 
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight 

O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, 95 

Cleaving till out the truth he clove. 

XVII 

Which done, he dragged him to my feet 
And said, "Here die, but end thy breath 

In full confession, lest thou fleet 

From my first, to God's second death ! 100 

Say, hast thou lied ? " And, ' ' I have lied 

To God and her," he said, and died. 

XVIII 

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked 

— What safe my heart holds, though no word 

Could I repeat now, if I tasked 105 

My powers for ever, to a third 

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest 

Until I sank upon his breast. 

XIX 

Over my head his arm he flung 

Against the world ; and scarce I felt 110 

His sword (that dripped by me and swung) 

A little shifted in its belt: 
For he began to say the while 
How South our home lay many a mile. 



COUNT GISMOND 27 

xx 

So 'mid the shouting multitude 115 

We two walked forth to never more 
Return. My cousins have pursued 

Their life, untroubled as before 
I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place 
God lighten! May his soul find grace! 120 

XXI 

Our elder boy has got the clear 

Great brow; though when his brother's black 
Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here ? 

And have you brought my tercel back ? 
I just was telling Adela 125 

How many birds it struck since May. 

(1842). 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 



You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 

A mile or so away, 
On a little mound, Napoleon 

Stood on our storming-day; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 5 

Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 

ii 

Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall, 10 

Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at yonder wall," — 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 15 

Until he reached the mound. 

in 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 

And held himself erect 
By just his horse's mane, a boy: 

You hardly could suspect — 20 

28 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 29 

(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through ) 
You looked twice ere you saw his breast 

Was all but shot in two. 

IV 

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace 25 

We've got you Ratisbon! 
The Marshal's in the market-place, 

And you'll be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire, 30 

Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans 

Soared up again like fire. 



The chief's eye flashed; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 35 

When her bruised eaglet breathes; 

You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said : 

I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside, 

Smiling the boy fell dead. 

(1842). 



i i 



"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD 
NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" 

[16-] 

I 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 

" Good speed! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, £ 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

II 
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 10 

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

in 

*T was moonset at starting; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight daw r ned clear; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; 15 

At Duffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime, 
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!" 

30 



FROM GHENT TO AIX 31 

IV 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 

And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 

To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past, 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 

With resolute shoulders, each butting away 

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: 



And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 25 

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; 

And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 

O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! 

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 

VI 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, 
We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

VII 

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; 

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 

And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!" 



32 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

VIII 

"How they '11 greet us!" — and all in a moment his roan 

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; 

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 45 

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 

And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

IX 

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, 

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; 

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or 

good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 



And all I remember is — friends flocking round 55 

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground; 

And no voice but w T as praising this Roland of mine, 

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 

Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 

Was no more than his due who brought good news from 

Ghent. 

(1845). 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 

That second time they hunted me 
From hill to plain, from shore to sea, 
And Austria, hounding far and wide 
Her blood-hounds through the country-side, 
Breathed hot and instant on my trace, — 5 

I made six days a hiding-place 
Of that dry green old aqueduct 
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked 
The fire-flies from the roof above, 

Bright creeping through the moss they love: 10 

— How long it seems* since Charles was lost! 
Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed 
The country in my very sight; 
And when that peril ceased at night, 
The sky broke out in red dismay 15 

With signal fires ; well, there I lay 
Close covered o'er in my recess, 
Up to the neck in ferns and cress, 
Thinking on Metternich our friend, 
And Charles's miserable end, 20 

And much beside, two days ; the third, 
Hunger o'ercame me when I heard 
The peasants from the village go 
To work among the maize; you know, 
With us in Lombardy, they bring 25 

Provisions packed on mules, a string 
With little bells that cheer their task, 

33 



34 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

And casks, and boughs on every cask 

To keep the sun's heat from the wine; 

These I let pass in jingling line, 30 

And, close on them, dear noisy crew, 

The peasants from the village, too; 

For at the very rear would troop 

Their wives and sisters in a group 

To help, I knew. When these had passed, 35 

I threw my glove to strike the last, 

Taking the chance: she did not start, 

Much less cry out, but stooped apart, 

One instant rapidly glanced round, 

And saw me beckon from the ground. 40 

A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; 

She picked my glove up while she stripped 

A branch off, then rejoined the rest 

With that; my glove lay in her breast. 

Then I drew breath; they disappeared: 45 

It was for Italy I feared. 

An hour, and she returned alone 
Exactly where my glove was thrown. 
Meanwhile came many thoughts; on me 
Rested the hopes of Italy. 50 

I had devised a certain tale 
Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail 
Persuade a peasant of its truth; 
I meant to call a freak of youth 

This hiding, and give hopes of pay, 55 

And no temptation to betray. 
But when I saw that woman's face, 
Its calm simplicity of grace, 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 35 

Our Italy's own attitude 

In which she walked thus far, and stood, 60 

Planting each naked foot so firm, 

To crush the snake and spare the worm — 

At first sight of her eyes, I said, 

"I am that man upon whose head 

They fix the price, because I hate 65 

The Austrians over us : the State 

Will give you gold — oh, gold so much! — 

If you betray me to their clutch, 

And be your death, for aught I know, 

If once they find you saved their foe. 70 

Now, you must bring me food and drink, 

And also paper, pen and ink, 

And carry safe what I shall write 

To Padua, which you'll reach at night 

Before the duomo shuts ; go in, 75 

And wait till Tenebrse begin; 

Walk to the third confessional, 

Between the pillar and the wall, 

And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace? 

Say it a second time, then cease; 80 

And if the voice inside returns, 

From Christ and Freedom; what concerns 

The cause of Peace f — for answer, slip 

My letter where you placed your lip ; 

Then come back happy we have done 85 

Our mother service — I, the son, 

As you the daughter of our land! " 

Three mornings more, she took her stand 
In the same place, with the same eyes : 



36 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

I was no surer of sunrise 90 

Than of her coming. We conferred 

Of her own prospects, and I heard 

She had a lover — stout and tall, 

She said — then let her eyelids fall, 

"He could do much" — as if some doubt 95 

Entered her heart, — then, passing out, 

' i She could not speak for others, who 

Had other thoughts; herself she knew:" 

And so she brought me drink and food. 

After four days, the scouts pursued ioo 

Another path; at last arrived 

The help my Paduan friends contrived 

To furnish me: she brought the news. 

For the first time I could not choose 

But kiss her hand, and lay my own 105 

Upon her head — "This faith was shown 

To Italy, our mother; she 

Uses my hand and blesses thee." 

She followed down to the sea-shore; 

I left and never saw her more. no 

How very long since I have thought 
Concerning — much less wished for — aught 
Beside the good of Italy, 
For which I live and mean to die! 

I never was in love; and since 115 

Charles proved false, what shall now convince 
My inmost heart I have a friend ? 
However, if I pleased to spend 
Real wishes on myself — say, three — 
I know at least what one should be. 120 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 37 

I would grasp Metternich until 

I felt his red wet throat distil 

In blood through these two hands. And next 

— Nor much for that am I perplexed — 

Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, 125 

Should die slow of a broken heart 

Under his new employers. Last 

— Ah, there, what should I wish ? For fast 

Do I grow old and out of strength. 

If I resolved to seek at length 130 

My father's house again, how scared 

They all would look, and unprepared ! 

My brothers live in Austria's pay 

— Disowned me long ago, men say; 

And all my early mates who used 135 

To praise me so — perhaps induced 

More than one early step of mine — 

Are turning wise : while some opine 

"Freedom grows license," some suspect 

" Haste breeds delay," and recollect 140 

They always said, such premature 

Beginnings never could endure! 

So, with a sullen "All's for best," 

The land seems settling to its rest. 

I think then, I should wish to stand 145 

This evening in that dear, lost land, 

Over the sea the thousand miles, 

And know if yet that woman smiles 

With the calm smile; some little farm 

She lives in there, no doubt; what harm 150 

If I sat on the door-side bench, 

And, while her spindle made a trench 



38 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Fantastically in the dust, 

Inquired of all her fortunes — just 

Her children's ages and their names, 155 

And what may be the husband's aims 

For each of them. I'd talk this out, 

And sit there, for an hour about, 

Then kiss her hand once more, and lay 

Mine on her head, and go my way. 160 



So much for idle wishing — how 
It steals the time! To business now. 



(1845). 



THE LOST LEADER 



Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 5 

So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their 
graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 15 

— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

II 

We shall march prospering, — not through his presence; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire; 20 

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 

39 



40 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

One more devils' -triumph and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 25 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own; 30 

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 

(1845). 



HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 

i 

Oh, to be in England 

Now that April's there, 

And whoever wakes in England 

Sees, some morning, unaware, 

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 5 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — now! 

II 

And after April, when May follows, 

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! 10 

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 

Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — 

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, 

Lest you should think he never could recapture 15 

The first fine careless rapture! 

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 

The buttercups, the little children's dower 

— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! 20 

(1845). 



41 



HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died 

away; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz 

Bay; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; 
In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar 

grand and gray; 
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help 

England ? " — say, 
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and 

pray, 

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 

(1845). 



42 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

Morning, evening, noon and night, 
" Praise God!" sang Theocrite. 

Then to his poor trade he turned, 
Whereby the daily meal was earned. 

Hard he labored, long and well; 5 

O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 

But ever, at each period, 

He stopped and sang, "Praise God!" 

Then back again his curls he threw, 

And cheerful turned to work anew. 10 

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done; 
I doubt not thou art heard, my son : 

"As well as if thy voice to-day 

Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 15 

Praises God from Peter's dome." 

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I 

Might praise Him, that great way, and die ! " 

Night passed, day shone, 

And Theocrite was gone. 20 

43 



44 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

With God a day endures alway, 
A thousand years are but a day. 

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night 
Now brings the voice of my delight." 

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 25 

Spread his wings and sank to earth; 

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, 

Lived there, and played the craftsman well; 

And morning, evening, noon and night, 

Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 

And from a boy, to youth he grew; 
The man put off the stripling's hue; 

The man matured and fell away 
Into the season of decay: 

And ever o'er the trade he bent, 35 

And ever lived on earth content. 

(He did God's will; to him, all one 
If on the earth or in the sun.) 

God said, "A praise is in mine ear; 

There is no doubt in it, no fear: 40 

"So sing old worlds, and so 

New worlds that from my footstool go. 

"Clearer loves sound other ways: 
I miss my little human praise." 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 45 

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 45 

The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 

'T was Easter Day: he flew to Rome, 
And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 

In the tiring-room close by 

The great outer gallery, 50 

With his holy vestments dight, 
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite: 

And all his past career 
Came back upon him clear, 

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, 55 

Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 

And in his cell, when death drew near, 
An angel in a dream brought cheer: 

And rising from the sickness drear, 

He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60 

To the East with praise he turned, 
And on his sight the angel burned. 

' ' I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, 
And set thee here; I did not well. 

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere, 65 

Vain was thy dream of many a year. 

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped — 
Creation's chorus stopped! 



46 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

"Go back and praise again 

The early way, while I remain. 70 

"With that weak voice of our disdain, 
Take up creation's pausing strain. 

"Back to the cell and poor employ: 
Resume the craftsman and the boy!" 

Theocrite grew old at home; 75 

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 



One vanished as the other died: 
They sought God side by side. 



(1845). 



THE GLOVE 

(peter ronsard loquitur) 

"HeighoI" yawned one day King Francis, 

' ' Distance all value enhances ! 

When a man's busy, why, leisure 

Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: 

'Faith, and at leisure once is he? 5 

Straightway he wants to be busy. 

Here we 've got peace; and aghast I 'm 

Caught thinking war the true pastime. 

Is there a reason in metre ? 

Give us your speech, master Peter!" 10 

I who, if mortal dare say so, 

Ne 'er am at loss with my Naso, 

"Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: 

Men are the merest Ixions " — 

Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's 15 

— Heigho — go look at our lions ! " 

Such are the sorrowful chances 

If you talk fine to King Francis. 

And so, to the courtyard proceeding, 

Our company, Francis was leading, 20 

Increased by new followers tenfold 
Before he arrived at the penfold; 
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen 

47 



48 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

At sunset the western horizon. 

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost 25 

With the dame he professed to adore most. 
Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed 
Her, and the horrible pitside; 
For the penfold surrounded a hollow 

Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, 30 

And shelved to the chamber secluded 
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. 
The King hailed his keeper, an Arab 
As glossy and black as a scarab, 

And bade him make sport and at once stir 35 

Up and out of his den the old monster. 
They opened a hole in the wire-work 
Across it, and dropped there a firework, 
And fled*, one's heart's beating redoubled; 
A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 

The blackness and silence so utter, 
By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter; 
Then earth in a sudden contortion 
Gave out to our gaze her abortion. 

Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot 45 

(Whose experience of nature 's but narrow, 
And whose faculties move in no small mist 
When he versifies David the Psalmist) 
I should study that brute to describe you 
Ilium Juda Leonem de Tribu. 50 

One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy 
To see the black mane, vast and heapy, 
The tail in the air stiff and straining, 
The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, 
As over the barrier which bounded 55 



THE GLOVE 49 

His platform, and us wro surrounded 

The barrier, they reached and they rested 

On space that might stand him in best stead : 

For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, 

The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 60 

And if, in this minute of wonder, 

No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder, 

Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered, 

The lion at last was delivered? 

Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead! 65 

And you saw by the flash on his forehead, 

By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, 

He was leagues in the desert already, 

Driving the flocks up the mountain, 

Or catlike couched hard by the fountain 70 

To waylay the date-gathering negress : 

So guarded he entrance or egress. 

"How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well 

swear 
(No novice, we 've won our spurs elsewhere 
And so can afford the confession), 75 

We exercise wholesome discretion 
In keeping aloof from his threshold; 
Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, 
Their first would too pleasantly purloin 
The visitor's brisket or sirloin: 80 

But who 's he would prove so fool-hardy ? 
Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!" 

The sentence no sooner was uttered, 

Than over the rails a glove fluttered, 

Fell close to the lion, and rested: 85 



50 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

The dame 't was, who flung it and jested 

With life so, De Lorge had been wooing 

For months past; he sat there pursuing 

His suit, weighing out with nonchalance 

Fine speeches like gold from a balance. 90 

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier! 

De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, 

Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion 

Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on 

The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, 95 

And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, — 

Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, 

Leaped back where the lady was seated, 

And full in the face of its owner 

Flung the glove. 

"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her? 100 

So should I! " — cried the King — i€ '% was mere vanity, 
Not love, set that task to humanity!" 
Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing 
From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. 

Not so, I; for I caught an expression 105 

In her brow's undisturbed self-possession 

Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, — 

As if from no pleasing experiment 

She rose, yet of pain not much heedful 

So long as the process was needful, — no 

As if she had tried, in a crucible, 

To what "speeches like gold" were reducible, 

And, finding the finest prove copper, 



THE GLOVE 51 

Felt the smoke in her face was but proper; 

To know what she had not to trust to, 115 

Was worth all the ashes and dust too. 

She went out 'mid hooting and laughter; 

Clement Marot stayed; I followed after, 

And asked, as a grace, what it all meant ? 

If she wished not the rash deed's recallment ? 120 

"For I" — so I spoke* — "am a poet: 

Human nature — behoves that I know it!" 

She told me, "Too long had I heard 

Of the deed proved alone by the word : 

For my love — what De Lorge would not dare! 125 

With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare! 

And the endless descriptions of death 

He would brave when my lip formed a breath, 

I must reckon as braved, or, of course, 

Doubt his word — and moreover, perforce, 130 

For such gifts as no lady could spurn, 

Must offer my love in return. 

When I looked on your lion, it brought 

All the dangers at once to my thought, 

Encountered by all sorts of men, 135 

Before he was lodged in his den, — 

From the poor slave whose club or bare hands 

Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands, 

With no King and no Court to applaud, 

By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 140 

Yet to capture the creature made shift, 

That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, 

— To the page who last leaped o'er the fence 

Of the pit, on no greater pretence 



52 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, 145 

Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. 

So, wiser I judged it to make 

One trial what c death for my sake' 

Really meant, while the power was yet mine, 

Than to wait until time should define 150 

Such a phrase not so simply as I, 

Who took it to mean 'just to die/ 

The blow a glove gives is but weak: 

Does the mark yet discolor my cheek ? 

But when the heart suffers a blow, 155 

Will the pain pass so soon, do you know ? " 

I looked, as away she was sweeping, 

And saw a youth eagerly keeping 

As close as he dared to the doorway. 

No doubt that a noble should more weigh 160 

His life than befits a plebeian; 

And yet, had our brute been Nemean — 

(I judge by a certain calm fervor 

The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) 

— He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn 165 

If you whispered, ' ' Friend, what you 'd get, first earn ! " 

And when, shortly after, she carried 

Her shame from the Court, and they married, 

To that marriage some happiness, maugre 

The voice of the Court, I dared augur. 170 

For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, 

Those in wonder and praise, these in envy; 

And in short stood so plain a head taller 

That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her ? 



THE GLOVE 53 

The beauty, that rose in the sequel 175 

To the King's love, who loved her a week well. 

And 't was noticed he never would honor 

De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) 

With the easy commission of stretching 

His legs in the service, and fetching 180 

His wife, from her chamber, those straying 

Sad gloves she was always mislaying, 

While the King took the closet to chat in, — 

But of course this adventure came pat in. 

And never the King told the story, 185 

How bringing a glove brought such glory, 

But the wife smiled — "His nerves are grown firmer: 

Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." 



Venienti occurrite morbo! 

With which moral I drop my theorbo. 



(1845). 



SAUL 

I 

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou 

speak, 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well ! " Then I wished it, and did 

kiss his cheek. 
And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy counte- 
nance sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his 

tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet, 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be 

wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three 

days, 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor 

of praise, 
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their 

strife, 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back 

upon life. 

II 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with 

his dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and 

blue 

54 



SAUL 55 

Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild 

heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert ! " 

in 

Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, 15 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was 

unlooped ; 
I pulled up the "spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; 
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered 

and gone, 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more 

I prayed, 20 

And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid 
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice 

replied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon 

I descried 
A something more black than the blackness — the vast, 

the upright • 

Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into 

sight 25 

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 
Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent roof, showed 

Saul. 

IV 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched 

out wide 
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to 

each side; 



56 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his 

pangs 30 

And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily 

hangs, 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance 

come 
With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear and stark, 

blind and dumb. 



Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine round 

its chords 
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — those 

sunbeams like swords! 35 

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one 

after one, 
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. 
They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they 

have fed 
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's 

bed; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows 

star 40 

Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so far! 

VI 

— Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will 

each leave his mate 
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets 

elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what 

has weight 



SAUL 57 

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house — 45 
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half 

mouse! 
God made all the creatures and gave them our love and 

our fear, 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family 

here. 

VII 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine- 
song, when hand 

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and 

great hearts expand 50 

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — And then, 
the last song 

When the dead man is praised on his journey — "Bear, 
bear him along 

With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! Are balm- 
seeds not here 

To console us ? The land has none left such as he on the 
bier. 

Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother! " — And then, 

the glad chaunt 55 

Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, she 
whom we vaunt 

As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, the 
great march 

Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an 
arch 

Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends? 
— Then, the chorus intoned 

As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 60 

But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned. 



58 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

VIII 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened 
apart; 

And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered : and spar- 
kles 'gan dart 

From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a 
start, 

All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at 

heart. 65 

So the head : but the body still moved not, still hung there 
erect. 

And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it un- 
checked, 

As I sang: — 

IX 

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit 

feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to 

rock, 70 

The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool 

silver shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the 

bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust 

divine, 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught 

of wine, ^ 75 

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes 

tell 



SAUL 59 

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and 

well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to em- 
ploy 
All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy! 
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose 

sword thou didst guard 80 

When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious 

reward ? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as 

men sung 
The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint 

tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more 

attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all 

was for best ' ? 85 

Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not 

much, but the rest. 
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working 

whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit 

strained true: 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of wonder 

and hope, 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's 

scope, — 90 

Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine: 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head 

combine ! 
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage 
(like the throe 



60 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the gold 

go) 

High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crown- 
ing them, — all 95 

Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King 
Saul!" 



And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, hand, harp 

and voice, 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding re- 
joice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as when, dare I 

say, 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through 

its array, 100 

And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot — "Saul!" cried I, 

and stopped, 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who 

hung propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by 

his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right 

to the aim, 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held 

(he alone, 105 

While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a 

broad bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves 

grasp of the sheet ? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to 

his feet. 



SAUL 61 

And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your 

mountain of old, 
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages un- 
told— no 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow 

and scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all hail, 

there they are! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the 

nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on 

his crest 
For their food in the ardors of summer. One long shud- 
der thrilled 115 
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was 

stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, released and 

aware. 
What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twixt 

hope and despair; 
Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile his 

right hand 
Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant, forthwith 

to remand 120 

To their place what new objects should enter: 't was Saul 

as before. 
I looked up, and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt 

any more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from 

the shore, 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow 

decline 



m BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and 

entwine 125 

Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm 
folded arm 

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 

XI 

What spell or what charm 
(For, awhile there was trouble within me), what next 

should I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him? — Song 

rilled to the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 130 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, 

on what fields, 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the 

eye, 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup 

they put by ? 
He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not: he lets me 

praise life, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 135 

XII 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me 

the sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in 

sleep; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that 

might lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill 

and the sky: 



SAUL 63 

And I laughed — ''Since my days are ordained to be passed 

with my flocks, 140 

Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and 

the rocks, 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the 

show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall 

know! 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage 

that gains, 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for ! " And 

now these old trains 145 

Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once 

more the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus — 

XIII 

"Yea, my King," 
I began — "thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that 

spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and 

by brute: 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it 

bears fruit. 150 

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — how its stem 

trembled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely 

outburst 
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these 

too, in turn 
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet 

more was to learn, 



64 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our 

dates shall we slight, 155 

When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow ? or care for 

the plight 
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? 

Not so! stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm- 
wine shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such 

wine. 
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be 

thine! 160 

By the spirit, w T hen age shall o'ercome thee, thou still 

shalt enjoy 
More indeed, than at first when in conscious, the life of a 

boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed 

thou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the 

sun 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, 

though tempests efface, 165 

Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must every- 
where trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray of 

thy will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall 

thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too 

give forth 
A like cheer to their sons ; who in turn, fill the South and 

the North 170 



SAUL 65 

With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. " Carouse in 

the past! 
But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last: 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her 

height, 
So with man — so his power and his beauty for ever take 

flight. 
No ! Again a long draught of my soul-wine ! Look forth 

o'er the years! 175 

Thou hast done now w T ith eyes for the actual; begin with 

the seer's! 
Is Saul dead ? In the depth of the vale make his tomb — 

bid arise 
A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built 

to the skies, 
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers : whose 

fame would ye know ? 
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall 

go 180 

In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such was Saul, so 

he did; 
With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid, — 
For not half, they '11 affirm, is comprised there! Which 

fault to amend, 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they 

shall spend 
(See, in tablets 't is level before them) their praise, and 

record 185 

With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the statesman's 

great word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's 

a-wave 



66 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when proph- 
et-winds rave: 

So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their 
part 

In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that 

thou art!" 190 

XIV 

And behold while I sang . . . but O Thou who didst 
grant me that day, 

And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, 

Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield and 
my sword 

In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was 
my word, — 

Still be with me, who then at the summit of human en- 
deavor 195 

And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hope- 
less as ever 

On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty to 
save, 

Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God's 
throne from man's grave! 

Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to my 
heart 

Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night 

I took part, 200 

As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my 
sheep, 

And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep ! 

For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron up- 
heaves 



SAUL 67 

The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and 

Kidron retrieves 
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 205 

xv 

I say then, — my song 

While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more 
strong, 

Made a proffer of good to console him — he slowly re- 
sumed 

His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand 
replumed 

His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the 
swathes 

Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his counte- 
nance bathes, 210 

He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as 
of yore, 

And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set 
before. 

He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent 

The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, 
though much spent 

Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God 

did choose, 215 

To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite 
lose. 

So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile 

Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned 
there awhile, 

And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent-prop, 
to raise 



68 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I touched 

on the praise 220 

I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient 

there ; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I 

was 'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast 

knees 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak 

roots which please 
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to 

know 225 

If the best I could do had brought solace : he spoke not, 

but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with 

care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: 

through my hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, 

with kind power — 
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. 230 
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scruti- 
nized mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was 

the sign ? 
I yearned — " Could I help thee, my father, inventing a 

bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and 

this; 
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, 235 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant, love's heart 

to dispense!" 



SAUL 69 

XVI 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song 
more ! outbroke — 

XVII 

"I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I 

spoke: 
I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my 

brain 
And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — returned 

him again 240 

His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw, 
I report, as a man may of God's work — all 's love, yet 

all 's law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty 

tasked 
To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop 

was asked. 
Have I knowledge ? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom 

laid bare. 245 

Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the 

Infinite Care! 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success ? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no 

less, 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen 

God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the 

clod. 250 

And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it 

too) 



70 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all- 
complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. 
Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, 255 
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my 

own. 
There s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think) 
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst 
E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if I 

durst! 260 

But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake 
God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for 

love's sake. 
— What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when 

doors great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hun- 
dredth appal? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest 

of all? 265 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate 

gift, 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it ? Here, 

the parts shift ? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, what 

Began ? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this 

man, 
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet 

alone can ? 270 

Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much 

less power, 



SAUL 71 

To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous 

dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with ? to make such a 

soul, 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the 

whole ? 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest ), 275 
These good things being given, to go on, and give one 

more, the best ? 
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the 

height 
This perfection, — succeed with life's dayspring, death's 

minute of night ? 
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, 
Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid him 

awake 280 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find him- 
self set 
Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new har- 
mony yet 
To be run and continued, and ended — who knows ? — or 

endure ! 
The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to 

make sure; 
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified 285 

bliss, 
And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles 

in this. 

XVIII 

"I believe it! 'T is thou, God, that givest, 't is I who re- 
ceive : 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. 



72 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

All 9 s one gift : thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt 

to my prayer 
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the 

air. 290 

From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy 

dread Sabaoth: 
I will ? — the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth 
To look that, even that in the face too ? Why is it I dare 
Think but lightly of such impuissance ? What stops my 

despair ? 
This; — 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but 

what man Would do! 295 

See the King — I would help him but cannot, the wishes 

fall through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to 

enrich, 
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing 

which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through 

me now! 
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So w T ouldst thou — so 

wilt thou ! 300 

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost 

crown — 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with 

death! 
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 305 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved ! 
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall 

stand the most weak. 



SAUL 73 

'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my fhsh, 

that I seek 
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall 

be 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to m^ 310 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand liki* 

this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the 

Christ stand!" 

XIX 

I know not too well how I found my way home in the \ 

night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to 

right, 
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the 

aware: 3ii > 

I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly 

there, 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell 

loosed with her crews ; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and 

shot 
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I 

fainted not, 320 

For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, 

suppressed 
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy be- 
hest, 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to 

rest. 



74 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



non a 



ut the dawn, all that trouble had withered from 



ea rth — 
Not sc^ mucn > but I saw it die out in the day's tender 

birth; 325 

In th^ gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills ; 
In tl ie shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden 

wind-thrills; 
In tP e startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye 

sidling still, 
Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff 

and chill 
Tjiat rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with 

awe: 330 

E 'en the serpent that slid away silent, — he felt the new 

law. 
r rhe same stared in the white humid faces upturned by 

the flowers; 
The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved 

the vine-bowers: 
And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent 

and low, 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — "E'en so, it 

is sol" 

(1845-1855). 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 



Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles 

Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep 

Half -asleep 
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 

As they crop — 
Was the site once of a city great and gay 

(So they say), 
Of our country's very capital, its prince 

Ages since 10 

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far 

Peace or war. 

ii 

Now, — the country does not even boast a tree, 

As you see, 
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills 15 

From the hills 
Intersect and give a name to (else they run 

Into one), 
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires 

Up like fires 20 

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall 

Bounding all, 
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, 

Twelve abreast. 

75 



76 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

in 

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 25 

Never was! 
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads 

And embeds 
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, 

Stock or stone — 30 

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe 

Long ago; 
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame 

Struck them tame; 
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 35 

Bought and sold. 

IV 

Now, — the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 40 

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks 

Through the chinks — 
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime, 
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced 45 

As they raced, 
And the monarch and his minions and his dames 

Viewed the games. 

v 

And I know — while thus the quiet-colored eve 

Smiles to leave so 

To their folding, all our many tinkling fleece 
In such peace, 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 77 

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray 

Melt away — 
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 55 

Waits me there 
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul 

For the goal, 
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, 
dumb 

Till I come. go 

VI 

But he looked upon the city, every side, 

Far and wide, 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' 

Colonnades, 
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then, 05 

All the men ! 
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face, 70 

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 

VII 

In one year they sent a million fighters forth 

South and North, 
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 75 

As the sky, 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — 

Gold, of course. 
Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns ! 

Earth's returns 80 



78 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! 

Shut them in, 

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! 

Love is best. 

(1855). 



EVELYN HOPE 



Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 
Beginning to die too, in the glass; 5 

Little has yet been changed, I think : 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. 

ii 

Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; 10 

It was not her time to love; beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir, 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — 15 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 

in 

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope ? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 20 

79 



80 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

And just because I was thrice as old 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 

Each was naught to each, must I be told ? 
We were fellow mortals, naught beside ? 

IV 

No, indeed ! for God above 25 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love: 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: 30 

Much is to learn, much to forget 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 



But the time will come, — at last it will, 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) 
In the lower earth in the years long still, 35 

That body and soul so pure and gay ? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red — 
And what you would do with me, in fine, 

In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40 



VI 

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 
Given up myself so many times, 

Gained me the gains of various men, 
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; 



EVELYN HOPE 81 

Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 

Either I missed or itself missed me: 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! 

What is the issue? let us see! 

VII 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while. 

My heart seemed full as it could hold; 50 

There was place and to spare for the frank young 
smile, 
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young 
gold. 
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : 
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! 
There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! 55 

You will wake, and remember, and understand. 

(1855). 



UP AT A VILLA— DOWN IN THE CITY 

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY) 

I 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city 

square; 
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window 

there! 

II 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at 

least ! 
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; 5 

While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than 

a beast. 

hi 

Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull 
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull, 
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! 
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned 

wool. 10 

IV 

But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! 

Why? 
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's something 

to take the eye! 

82 



UP AT A VILLA— DOWN IN THE CITY 83 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; 
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who 

hurries by; 
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun 

gets high; 15 

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted 

properly. 

v 

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by 

rights, 
'T is May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well 

off the heights : 
You Ve the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen 

steam and wheeze, 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive 

trees. 20 

VI 

Is it better in May, I ask you ? You 've summer all at 

once; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three 

fingers well, 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red 

bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick 

and sell. 25 

VII 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to spout 
and splash ! 

In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam- 
bows flash 



84 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and 

paddle and pash 
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not 

abash, 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist 

in a sort of sash. 

VIII 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you 

linger, 
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted 

forefinger. 
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and 

mingle, 
Oi thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem 

a-tingle. 
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is 

shrill, 
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resin- 
ous firs on the hill. 
Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the 

fever and chill. 

IX 

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church 
bells begin: 

No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in : 

You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a 
pin. 

By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets 
blood, draws teeth; 

Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market be- 
neath. 



UP AT A VILLA— DOWN IN THE CITY 85 

At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, 
piping hot! 

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves 
were shot. 

Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of re- 
bukes, 45 

And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new 
law of the Duke's ! 

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don 
So-and-so, 

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome and 
Cicero, 

"And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the 
skirts of St. Paul has reached, 

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctu- 
ous than ever he preached." 50 

Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady 
borne smiling and smart 

With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords 
stuck in her heart ! 

Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; 

No keeping one's haunches still: it 's the greatest pleas- 
ure in life. 

x 

But bless you, it's dear — it's dear! fowls, wine, at double 

the rate. 55 

They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil 

pays passing the gate 
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not 

the city! 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the pity, 

the pity! 



86 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with 

cowls and sandals, 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the 

yellow candles; 60 

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross 

with handles, 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better 

prevention of scandals r 

Bang-whang -whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. 

Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure 

in life! 

(1855). 



A WOMAN'S LAST WORD 



Let's contend no more, Love, 

Strive nor weep: 
All be as before, Love, 

—Only sleep ! 

II 

What so wild as words are ? 5 

I and thou 
In debate, as birds are, 

Hawk on bough 1 

in 

See the creature stalking 

While we speak! 10 

Hush and hide the talking, 

Cheek on cheek. 



rv 

What so false as truth is, 

False to thee ? 
Where the serpent's tooth is 15 

Shun the tree — 

87 



88 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



Where the apple reddens 

Never pry — 
Lest we lose our Edens, 

Eve and I. 20 



VI 

Be a god and hold me 

With a charm! 
Be a man and fold me 

With thine arm! 

VII 

Teach me, only teach, Love! 25 

As I ought 
I will speak thy speech, Love, 

Think thy thought— 

VIII 

Meet, if thou require it, 

Both demands, 30 

Laying flesh and spirit 

In thy hands. 

IX 

That shall be to-morrow, 

Not to-night : 
I must bury sorrow 35 

Out of sight: 



A WOMAN'S LAST WORD 89 

x 

— Must a little weep, Love, 

(Foolish me!), 

And so fall asleep, Love, 

Loved by thee. 

(1855) 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 



Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find ! 

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf 

and blind; 
But although I take your meaning, 9 t is with such a heavy 

mind! 

ii 

Here you come with your old music, and here 's all the 

good it brings. 
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants 

were the kings, 5 

Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea 

with rings ? 

in 

Ay, because the sea 's the street there; and 't is arched by 

. . . what you call 
. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept 

the carnival: 
I was never out of England — it 's as if I saw it all. 

IV 

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was 

warm in May ? 10 

90 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 91 

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid- 
day, 

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do 
you say ? 

v 

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, — 
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on 

its bed, 
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might 

base his head? 15 

VI 

Well, and it was graceful of them — they 'd break talk off 
and afford 

— She, to bite her mask's black velvet — he, to finger on 
his sword, 

While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavi- 
chord ? 

VII 

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths dimin- 
ished, sigh on sigh, 

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solu- 
tions—" Must we die ? " 20 

Those commiserating sevenths — "Life might last! we 
can but try!" 

VIII 

"Were you happy?" — "Yes."— "And are you still as 

happy?"— "Yes. And you?" 
— "Then, more kisses!" — "Did I stop them, when a 

million seemed so few ? " 

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered 
to! 



92 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

IX 

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, 

I dare say! 25 

"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave 
and gay! 

I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play ! " 



Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one 

by one, 
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds 

as well undone, 
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never 

see the sun. 30 

XI 

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand 

nor swerve, 
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close 

reserve, 
In you come with your cold music till I creep through 

every nerve. 

XII 

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house 

was burned: 
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what 

Venice earned. 35. 

The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be 

discerned. 

XIII 

' Yours for instance: you know physics, something of 
geology 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 93 

Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their 
degree; 

Butterflies may dread extinction, — you '11 not die, it can- 
not be ! 

XIV 

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom 

and drop, 40 

Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly 
were the crop : 

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to 

stop? 

xv 

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the 

heart to scold. 
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what 's become 

of all the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and 

grown old. 

(1855). 



MY STAR 

All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red, 5 

Now a dart of blue; 
Till my friends have said 

They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red and the blue! 
Then it stops like a bird ; like a flower, hangs furled : 10 

They must solace themselves with the Saturn 
above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a world ? 

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it. 

(1855). 



94 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 



Of the million or two, more or less, 
I rule and possess, 
One man, for some cause undefined, 
Was least to my mind. 

II 

I struck him, he grovelled of course — 5 

For, what was his force ? 

I pinned him to earth with my weight 

And persistence of hate; 

And he lay, would not moan, would not curse, 

As his lot might be worse. 10 

in 

"Were the object less mean, would he stand 
At the swing of my hand ! 
For obscurity helps him and blots 
The hole where he squats." 

So, I set my five wits on the stretch 15 

To inveigle the wretch. 
All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw, 
Still he couched there perdue; 
I tempted his blood and his flesh, 

95 



96 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Hid in roses my mesh, 20 

Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: 
Still he kept to his filth. 

IV 

Had he kith now or kin, were access 

To his heart, did I press : 

Just a son or a mother to seize ! 25 

No such booty as these. 

Were it simply a friend to pursue 

'Mid my million or two, 

Who could pay me in person or pelf 

What he owes me himself! 30 

No : I could not but smile through my chafe : 

For the fellow lay safe 

As his mates do, the midge and the nit, 

— Through minuteness, to wit. 



Then a humor more great took its place 35 

At the thought of his face, 

The droop, the low cares of the mouth, 

The trouble uncouth 

'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain 

To put out of its pain. 40 

And, "no!" I admonished myself, 

1 ' Is one mocked by an elf, 

Is one baffled by toad or by rat ? 

The gravamen 's in that! 

How the lion, who crouches to suit 45 

His back to my foot, 

Would admire that I stand in debate! 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 97 

But the small turns the great 

If it vexes you, — that is the thing! 

Toad or rat vex the king ? 50 

Though I waste half my realm to unearth 

Toad or rat, 't is well worth!" 

VI 

So, I soberly laid my last plan 

To extinguish the man. 

Round his creep-hole, with never a break 55 

Ran my fires for his sake; 

Over-head, did my thunder combine 

With my underground mine: 

Till I looked from my labor content 

To enjoy the event. 60 

When sudden . . . how think ye, the end ? 

Did I say " without friend " ? 

Say rather, from marge to blue marge 

The whole sky grew his targe 

With the sun's self for visible boss, 65 

While an Arm ran across 

Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast 

Where the wretch was safe prest ! 

Do you see ? Just my vengeance complete, 

The man sprang to his feet, 70 

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! 

— So, I was afraid 1 

(1855). 



A PRETTY WOMAN 



That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, 

And the blue eye 

Dear and dewy, 
And that infantine fresh air of hers ! 

II 

To think men cannot take you, Sweet, 5 

And enfold you, 

Ay, and hold you, 
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet ! 

in 

You like us for a glance, you know — 

For a word's sake 10 

Or a sword's sake, 
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know. 

IV 

And in turn we make you ours, we say — 

You and youth too, 

Eyes and mouth too, 15 

All the face composed of flowers, we say. 



A PRETTY WOMAN 99 



All 's our own, to make the most of, Sweet — 

Sing and say for, 

Watch and pray for, 
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet ! 20 

VI 

But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet, 

Though we prayed you, 

Paid you, brayed you 
In a mortar — for you could not, Sweet ! 

VII 

So, we leave the sweet face fondly there; 25 

Be its beauty 

Its sole duty ! 
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there 1 

VIII 

And while the face lies quiet there, 

Who shall wonder 30 

That I ponder 
A conclusion ? I will try it there. 

IX 

As, — why must one, for the love foregone, 

Scout mere liking? 

Thunder-striking 35 

Earth, — the heaven, we looked above for, gone ! 



100 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



Why, with beauty, needs there money be, 

Love with liking? 

Crush the fly-king 
In his gauze, because no honey-bee ? 40 

XI 

May not liking be so simple-sweet, 

If love grew there 

'T would undo there 
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet ? 

XII 

Is the creature too imperfect, say? 45 

Would you mend it 

And so end it ? 
Since not all addition perfects aye. 

XIII 

Or is it of its kind, perhaps, 

Just perfection — 50 

Whence, rejection 
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps ? 

XIV 

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once 

Into tinder, 

And so hinder 55 

Sparks from kindling all the place at once ? 



A PRETTY WOMAN 101 

xv 

Or else kiss away one's soul on her ? 

Your love-fancies! 

— A sick man sees 
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her! 60 

XVI 

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose, — 

Plucks a mould-flower 

For his gold flower, 
Uses fine things that efface the rose: 

XVII 

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose, 65 

Precious metals 

Ape the petals, — 
Last, some old king locks it up, morose! 

XVIII 

Then how grace a rose? I know a way! 

Leave it, rather. 70 

Must you gather ? 

Smell, kiss, wear it — at last, throw away! 

(1855). 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 



I said — Then, dearest, since 't is so, 
Since now at length my fate I know, 
Since nothing all my love avails, 
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, 

Since this was written and needs must be — 5 

My whole heart rises up to bless 
Your name in pride and thankfulness! 
Take back the hope you gave, — I claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
— And this beside, if you will not blame, 10 

Your leave for one more last ride with me. 

ii 

My mistress bent that brow of hers; 

Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs 

When pity would be softening through, 

Fixed me a breathing-while or two 15 

With life or death in the balance : right ! 
The blood replenished me again ; 
My last thought was at least not vain : 
I and my mistress, side by side 

Shall be together, breathe and ride, 20 

So, one day more am I deified. 

Who knows but the world may end to-night ? 
102 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 103 

in 

Hush! if you saw some western cloud 

All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed 

By many benedictions — sun's 25 

And moon's and evening-star's at once — 

And so, you, looking and loving best, 
Conscious grew, your passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, 
Down on you, near and yet more near, 30 

Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! — 
Thus leant she and lingered — joy and fear! 

Thus lay she a moment on my breast. 

IV 

Then we began to ride. My soul 

Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll 35 

Freshening and fluttering in the wind. 

Past hopes already lay behind. 

What need to strive with a life awry ? 
Had I said that, had I done this, 

So might I gain, so might I miss. 40 

Might she have loved me? just as well 
She might have hated, who can tell ! 
Where had I been now if the worst befell ? 

And here we are riding, she and I. 



Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? 45 

Why, all men strive, and who succeeds ? 
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew, 
Saw other regions, cities new, 

As the world rushed by on either side. 



104 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

I thought, — All labor, yet no less 50 

Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 

Look at the end of work, contrast 

The petty done, the undone vast, 

This present of theirs with the hopeful past! 

I hoped she would love me; here we ride. 55 

VI 

What hand and brain went ever paired ? 
What heart alike conceived and dared ? 
What act proved all its thought had been ? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen ? 

We ride and I see her bosom heave. 60 

There's many a crown for who can reach. 
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!- 
The flag stuck on a heap of bones, 
A soldier's doing! what atones? 
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. 65 

My riding is better, by their leave. 

VII 

What does it all mean, poet ? Well, 

Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell 

What we felt only; you expressed 

You hold things beautiful the best, 70 

And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 
'T is something, nay 't is much: but then, 
Have you yourself what 's best for men ? 
Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — 
Nearer one whit your own sublime 75 

Than we who never have turned a rhyme ? 

Sing, riding 's a joy! For me, I ride. 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 105 

VIII 

And you, great sculptor — so, you gave 

A score of years to Art, her slave, • 

And that 's your Venus, whence we turn 80 

To yonder girl that fords the burn ! 

You acquiesce, and shall I repine ? 
What, man of music, you grown gray 
With notes and nothing else to say, 
Is this your sole praise from a friend, 85 

" Greatly his opera's strains intend, 
But in music we know how fashions end ! " 

I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. 

IX 

Who knows what 's fit for us ? Had fate 
Proposed bliss here should sublimate 90 

My being — had I signed the bond — 
Still one must lead some life beyond, 

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. 
This foot once planted on the goal, 
This glory-garland round my soul, 95 

Could I descry such? Try and test! 
I sink back shuddering from the quest. 
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? 

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. 



And yet — she has not spoke so long! 100 

What if heaven be that, fair and strong 
At life's best, with our eyes upturned 
Whither life's flower is first discerned, 
We, fixed so, ever should so abide? 



106 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

What if we still ride on, we two, 105 

With life for ever old yet new, 

Changed not in kind but in degree, 

The instant made eternity, — 

And heaven just prove that I and she 

Ride, ride together, for ever ride ? 

(1855). 



THE PATRIOT 

AN OLD STORY 
I 

It was roses, roses, all the way, 

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 

The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
A year ago on this very day. 5 

ii 

The air broke into a mist with bells, 

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 

Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels — 
But give me your sun from yonder skies ! " 

They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" 10 

in 

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 

To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
Naught man could do, have I left undone: 

And you see my harvest,* what I reap 
This very day, now a year is run. 15 

IV 

There 's nobody on the house-tops now — 
Just a palsied few at the windows set; 

107 



108 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

For the best of the sight is, all allow, 

At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet, 
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20 



I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 

A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 

For they fling, whoever has a mind, 
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 25 

VI 

Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 

Me ? " — God might question ; now instead, 

'T is God shall repay: I am safer so. 

(1855). 



MEMORABILIA 



Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 

And did he stop and speak to you, 
And did you speak to him again ? 

How strange it seems and new I 

ii 

But you were living before that, 5 

And also you are living after; 
And the memory I started at — 

My starting moves your laughter! 

hi 

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 

And a certain use in the world no doubt, 10 

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 
'Mid the blank miles round about: 

IV 

For there I picked up on the heather 

And there I put inside my breast 

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! 15 

Well, I forget the rest. 

(1855). 
109 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 

CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER " 

But do not let us quarrel any more, 
No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, 5 

Treat his own subject after his own way, 
Fix his own time, accept too his own price, 
And shut the money into this small hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 
Oh, I'll content him, — but to-morrow, Love! 10 

I often am much wearier than you think, 
This evening more than usual, and it seems 
As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
Here by the window with your hand in mine 
And look a half -hour forth on Fiesole, 15 

Both of one mind, as married people use, 
Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
I might get up to-morrow to my work 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 

To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! 20 

Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 
And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve 
For each of the five pictures we require: 

110 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 111 

It saves a model. So ! keep looking so— 25 

My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 
— How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet — 
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, 
Which everybody looks on and calls his, 30 

And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 
While she looks — no one's: very dear, no less. 
You smile ? why, there's my picture ready made, 
There's what we painters call our harmony! 
A common grayness silvers everything, — 35 

All in a twilight, you and I alike 
— You, at the point of your first pride in me 
(That's gone you know), — but I, at every point; 
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 40 

There 's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; 
That length of convent-wall across the way 
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; 
The last monk leaves the garden: days decrease, 
And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 45 

Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape 
As if I saw alike my work and self 
And all that I was born to be and do, 
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 
How strange now looks the life he makes us lead; 50 

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! 
This chamber for example — turn your head — 
All that 's behind us ! You don't understand 
Nor care to understand about my art, 55 

But you can hear at least when people speak: 



112 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

And that cartoon, the second from the door 

— It is the thing, Love! so such thing should be — 

Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 

I can do with my pencil what I know, 60 

What I see, what at bottom of my heart 

I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 

Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 

I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge, 

Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, 65 

And just as much they used to say in France. 

At any rate, 't is easy, all of it! 

Iso sketches first, no studies, that 's long past: 

I do what many dream of all their lives, 

— Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do, 70 

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 

Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 

To paint a little thing like that you smeared 

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 75 

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, 

(I know his name, no matter) — so much less! 

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. 

There burns a truer light of God in them, 

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 80 

Heart, or what e'er else, than goes on to prompt 

This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, 

Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me, 

Enter and take their place there sure enough, 85 

Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 

The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 113 

Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 

I, painting from myself, and to myself, 90 

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 

Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 

Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 

His hue mistaken ; what of that ? or else, 

Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that ? 95 

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care ? 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 

Or what 's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray 

Placid and perfect with my art : the worse ! 

I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 

And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 

"Had I been two, another and myself, 

Our head would have overlooked the world ! " No doubt. 

Yonder 's a work now, of that famous youth 

The Urbinate who o!ied five years ago. 105 

('T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 

Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 

Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, 

Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 

Above and through his art — for it gives way; no 

That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 

A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, 

Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, 

He means right — that, a child may understand. 

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: 115 

But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 

Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? 

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, 

We might have risen to Rafael, I and you ! 

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 120 



114 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

More than I merit, yes, by many times. 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 125 

Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! 

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 

' ( God and the glory ! never care for gain. 

The present by the future, w T hat is that ? 

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 130 

Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three ! " 

I might have done it for you. So it seems: 

Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 

Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 

The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 135 

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 

In this world, who can do a thing, will not; 

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: 

Yet the will 's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power — 

And thus we half -men struggle. At the end, 140 

God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 

'T is safer for me, if the award be strict, 

That I am something underrated here, 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 145 

For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 

The best is when they pass and look aside; 

But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. 

Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first time, 

And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 150 

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 

Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 115 

In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 

One finger in his beard or twisted curl 

Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile 155 

One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, 

The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 

I painting proudly with his breath on me, 

All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 

Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 160 

Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 

This in the background, waiting on my work, 

To crown the issue with a last reward ! 

A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 165 

And had you not grown restless . . . but I know — 

'T is done and past; 't was right, my instinct said; 

Too live the life grew, golden and not gray, 

And I 'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 

Out of his grange whose four walls make his world. 170 

How could it end in any other way ? 

You called me, and I came home to your heart. 

The triumph was — to reach and stay there; since 

I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ? 

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, • 175 

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! 

" Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; 

The Roman's is the better when you pray, 

But still the other's Virgin was his wife" — 

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 180 

Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows 

My better fortune, I resolve to think. 

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, 

Said one day Agnolo, his very self, 



116 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

To Rafael ... I have known it all these years ... 185 

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 

Too lifted up in heart because of it) 

"Friend, there 's a certain sorry little scrub 

Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, 190 

Who, were he set to plan and execute 

As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, 

Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours ! " 

To Rafael's! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 

I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 195 

Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! 

Ay, but the soul! he 's Rafael! rub it out! 

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth 

(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 

Do you forget already words like those?), 200 

If really there was such a chance, so lost, — 

Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more pleased. 

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! 

This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 

If you would sit thus by me every night 205 

I should work better, do you comprehend? 

I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 

See, it is settled dusk now; there 's a star; 

Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the w T all, 

The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 

Come from the window, Love, — come in, at last, 

Inside the melancholy little house 

We built to be so gay with. God is just. 

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights 

When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 215 

The walls become illumined, brick from brick 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 117 

Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, 

That gold of his I did cement them with ! 

Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 

That Cousin here again ? he wai s outside ? 220 

Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those loans ? 

More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 

Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? 

While hand and eye and something of a heart 

Are left me, work 's my ware, and what 's it worth ? 225 

I '11 pay my fancy. Only let me sit 

The gray remainder of the evening out, 

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 

How I could paint, were I but back in France, 

One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 230 

Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 

To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 

Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 

Will you ? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 

I take the subjects for his corridor, 235 

Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 

And throw him in another thing or two 

If he demurs; the whole should prove enough 

To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 

What 's better and what 's all I care about, 240 

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff ! 

Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does he, 

The Cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 245 

Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 
The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 



118 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 

And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 

My father and my mother died of want. 2G0 

Well, had I riches of my own ? you see 

How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died : 

And I have labored somewhat in my time 

iVnd not been paid profusely. Some good son 255 

Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 

No doubt, there 's something strikes a balance. Yes, 

You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 

This must suffice me here. What would one have ? 

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance — 260 

Four great walls in the new Jerusalem, 

Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 

For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me 

To cover — the three first without a wife, 

While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 265 

Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. 

(1855). 



u 



DE GUSTIBUS— " 



Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees 

(If our loves remain), 

In an English lane, 
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. 
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice — 5 

A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, 

Making love, say, — 

The happier they! 
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, 
And let them pass, as they will too soon, 10 

With the beanflowers' boon, 

And the blackbird's tune, 

And May, and June! 

ii 

What I love best in all the world 

Is a castle, precipice-encurled, 15 

In a gash of the w T ind-grieved Apennine. 
Or look for me, old fellow of mine 
(If I get my head from out the mouth 
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, 
And come again to the land of lands ) — 20 

In a sea-side house to the farther South, 
Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, 

119 



120 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

And one sharp tree — *t is a cypress — stands, 

By the many hundred years red-rusted, 

Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, 25 

My sentinel to guard the sands 

To the water's edge. For, what expands 

Before the house, but the great opaque 

Blue breadth of sea without a break ? 

While, in the house, for ever crumbles 30 

Some fragment of the frescoed walls, 

From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. 

A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles 

Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, 

And says there's news to-day — the king 35 

Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, 

Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: 

— She hopes they have not caught the felons. 

Italy, my Italy ! 

Queen Mary's saying serves for me — 40 

(When fortune's malice 

Lost her, Calais) — 

Open my heart and you will see 

Graved inside of it, "Italy." 

Such lovers old are I and she: 45 

So it always was, so shall ever be! 

(1855). 



THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL 

A PICTURE AT FANO 
I 

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave 
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! 

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve 
Shall find performed thy special ministry, 

And time come for departure, thou, suspending, 5 

Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, 
Another still, to quiet and retrieve. 

II 

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, 
From where thou standest now, to w T here I gaze, 

— And suddenly my head is covered o'er 10 

With those wings, white above the child who prays 

Now on that tomb — and I shall feel thee guarding 

Me, out of all the w T orld; for me, discarding 

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door. 

ill 

I would not look up thither past thy head 15 

Because the door opes, like that child, I know, 

For I should have thy gracious face instead, 
Thou bird of God ! And wilt thou bend me low 

121 



122 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, 
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether 20 

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread ? 

IV 

If this was ever granted, I would rest 

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands 

Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, 

Pressing the brain, which too much thought ex- 
pands, 25 

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing 

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, 
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed. 



How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired ! 

I think how I should view the earth and skies 30 

And sea, when once again my brow was bared 

After thy healing, with such different eyes. 
O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 

What further may be sought for or declared ? 35 

VI 

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach 

(Alfred, dear friend!) — that little child to pray, 

Holding the little hands up, each to each 

Pressed gently, — with his own head turned away 

Over the earth where so much lay before him 40 

Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, 
And he was left at Fano by the beach. 



THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL 123 

VII 

We were at Fano, and three times we went 

To sit and see him in his chapel there, 
And drink his beauty to our soul's content 45 

— My angel with me too : and since I care 
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power 
And glory comes this picture for a dower, 

Fraught with a pathos so magnificent) — 

VIII 

And since he did not work thus earnestly 50 

At all times, and has else endured some wrong — 

I took one thought his picture struck from me, 
And spread it out, translating it to song. 

My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend ? 

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end ? 55 

This is Ancona, yonder is the sea. • 

(1855). 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 

Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 5 

Cared-f or till cock-crow : 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row! 
That 's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, 

Rarer, intenser, 10 

Self -gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, 

Chafes in the censer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 15 

Crowded with culture! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels ; 

Clouds overcome it; 
No ! yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 20 

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: 

Wait ye the warning ? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's; 

He 's for the morning. 
124 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 125 

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 25 

'Ware the beholders! 
This is our master, famous calm and dead, 

Borne on our shoulders. 

Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, 

Safe from the weather! 30 

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, 

Singing together, 
He was a man born with thy face and throat, 

Lyric Apollo! 
Long he lived nameless : how should spring take note 35 

Winter would follow ? 
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! 

Cramped and diminished, 
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! 

My dance is finished " ? 40 

No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side, 

Make for the city!) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 45 

Bent on escaping: 
" What 's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled ? 

Show me their shaping, 
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

Give!" — So, he gowned him, 50 

Straight got by heart that book to its last page: 

Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, 

Accents uncertain: 
"Time to taste life," another would have said, 55 



126 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

"Up with the curtain !" 
This man said rather, ' ' Actual life comes next ? 

Patience a moment ! 
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

Still there 's the comment. 60 

Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least, 

Painful or easy! 
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, 

Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, * 65 

When he had learned it, 
When he had gathered all books had to give! 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 70 

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, 

Ere mortar dab brick! 

(Here 's the town-gate reached ; there 's the market- 
place 

Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 75 

(Hearten our chorus ! ) 
That before living he 'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning: 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 80 

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes: 

Live now or never!" 
He said, ' ' What 's time ? Leave Now for dogs and apes ! 

Man has Forever." 
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: 85 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 127 

Calculus racked him: 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : 

Tussis attacked him. 
"Now, master, take a little rest!" — not he! 

(Caution redoubled, 90 

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) 

Not a whit troubled 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first, 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 95 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain! 100 

Was it not great ? did not he throw on God 

(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen ? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 105 

Just what it all meant ? 
He would not discount life, as fools do here, 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure: no 

"Wilt thou trust death or not ? " He answered "Yes : 

Hence with life's pale lure!" 
That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it: 
This high man, w T ith a great thing to pursue, lis 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, 



128 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

His hundred 's soon hit: 
This high man, aiming at a million, 

Misses an unit. 120 

That, has the world here— should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find Him. 
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 125 

Ground he at grammar; 
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: 

While he could stammer 
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! — 

Properly based Oun — 130 

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 

Dead from the waist down. 
Well, here's the platform, here 's the proper place: 

Hail to your purlieus, 
AH ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 

Swallows and curlews! 
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there: 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there? 140 

Here — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds 
form, 

Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm, 

Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects : 145 

Loftily lying, 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, 

Living and dying. (1855). 



ONE WAY OF LOVE 



All June I bound the rose in sheaves. 

Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves 

And strew them where Pauline may pass. 

She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 

Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 5 

The chance was they might take her eye. 

ii 

How many a month I strove to suit 

These stubborn fingers to the lute! 

To-day I venture all I know. 

She will not hear my music ? So ! io 

Break the string; fold music's wing: 

Suppose Pauline had bade me sing! 

in 

My whole life long I learned to love. 

This hour my utmost art I prove 

And speak my passion — heaven or hell ? 15 

She will not give me heaven ? 'T is well! 

Lose who may — I still can say, 

Those who win heaven, blest are they! 

(1855). 



129 



ONE WORD MORE 



TO E. B. B. 
I 

There they are, my fifty men and women 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together: 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

ii 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 5 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas: 

These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you. 10 

Did she live and love it all her lifetime ? 

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, 

Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 15 

Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ? 

hi 

You and I would rather read that volume 
(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 

130 



ONE WORD MORE 131 

Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 

Would we not ? than wonder at Madonnas — 

Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 

Her, that visits Florence in a vision, 

Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre — 

Seen by us and all the world in circle. 25 

IV 

You and I will never read that volume. 

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple, 

Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 



Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 
Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 
While he mused and traced it and retraced it 
(Peradventure with a pen corroded 35 

Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 
When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, 
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, 
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 

Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 
Dante, who loved well because he hated, 
Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 
Dante, standing, studying his angel, — 
In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 45 

Says he — "Certain people of importance" 



132 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 
"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. ,, 
Says the poet — "Then I stopped my painting." 

VI 

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 

Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. 

VII 

You and I will never see that picture. 

While he mused on love and Beatrice, 

While he softened o'er his outlined angel, 55 

In they broke, those "people of importance " 

We and Bice bear the loss forever. 

VIII 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture? 

This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not 

Once, and only once, and for one only 60 

(Ah, the prize!), to find his love a language 

Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 

Using nature that's an art to others, 

Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. 

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 65 

None but would forego his proper dowry, — 

Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, 

Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture, — 

Put to proof art alien to the artist's, 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 

So to be the man and leave the artist, 

Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 



ONE WORD MORE 133 

IX 

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement! 

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 

Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 75 

Even he, the minute makes immortal, 

Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, 

Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. 

While he smites, how can he but remember, 

So he smote before, in such a peril, 80 

When they stood and mocked — "Shall smiting help 

us?" 
When they drank and sneered — "A stroke is easy!" 
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, 
Throwing him for thanks — "But drought was pleas- 
ant." 
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; 85 

Thus the doing savors of disrelish; 
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; 
O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, 
Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture. 
For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 

Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, 
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — 
"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?" 
Guesses wjiat is like to prove the sequel— 
"Egypt's flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better." 95 

x 

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the prophet. 



134 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

XI 

Did he love one face from out the thousands 100 

(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 

Were she but the ^Ethiopian bondslave), 

He would envy yon dumb, patient camel, 

Keeping a reserve of scanty water 

Meant to save his own life in the desert; 105 

Ready in the desert to deliver 

(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 

Hoard and life together for his mistress. 

XII 

I shall never, in the years remaining, 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, no 

Make you music that should all-express me; 

So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows me; 

Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God willing: 115 

All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love! 

XIII 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 

Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, 

Lines I write the first time and the last time, 120 

He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, 

Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, 

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, 

Makes a strange art of an art familiar, 

Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 125 



ONE WORD MORE 135 

He who blows through bronze may breathe through 

silver, 
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 
He who writes, may write for once as I do. 

XIV 

Love, you saw me gather men and women, 

Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 

Enter each and all, and use their service, 

Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 

Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: 

I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 135 

Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty. 

Let me speak this once in my true person, 

Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 

Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence- 

Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 

Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 

Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! 

Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things. 

xv 

Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon's self ! 

Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 145 

Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 

Curving on a sky imbrued with color, 

Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, 

Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth- 

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 

Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 

Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 

Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, 



136 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, 

Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 155 

Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

XVI 

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy ? 

Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal, 

Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), 

All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos), 160 

She would turn a new side to her mortal, 

Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 

Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 

Blind to Galileo on his turret, 

Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even! 165 

Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 

When she turns round, comes again in heaven, 

Opens out anew for worse or better! 

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 

Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 

Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ? 

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire, 

Seen bv Moses when he climbed the mountain ? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 175 

Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 

When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 

XVII 

What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know. 180 
Only this is sure — the sight were other, 



ONE WORD MORE 137 

Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 

Dying now impoverished heie in London. 

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 185 

One to show a woman when he loves her! 

XVIII 

This I say of me, but think of you, Love! 

This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 

Ah, but that 's the world's side, there 's the wonder, 

Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you — 

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 

But the best is when I glide from out them, 

Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 

Come out on the other side, the novel 195 

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 

Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

XIX 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 

Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 

Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it, 200 

Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! 

R. B. (1855). 



RABBI BEN EZRA 



Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in his hand 

Who saith "A whole I planned, 5 

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor 
be afraid!" 

ii 

Not that, amassing flowers, 
Youth sighed, " Which rose make ours, 
Which lily leave and then as best recall?" 
Not that, admiring stars, 10 

It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; 
Mine be some figured flame which blends, tran- 
scends them all ! " 

in 

Not for such hopes and fears 
Annulling youth's brief years, 

Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! 15 

Rather I prize the doubt 
Low kinds exist without, 

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 
138 



RABBI BEN EZRA 139 

IV 

Poor vaunt of life indeed , 

Were man but formed to feed 20 

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the 
maw-crammed beast? 



Rejoice we are allied 25 

To That which doth provide 

And not partake, effect and not receive! 

A spark disturbs our clod ; 

Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must 

believe. 30 

VI 

Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
Be our joys three-parts pain ! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 35 

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never 
grudge the throe! 

VII 

For thence, — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — 

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: 

What I aspired to be, 40 



140 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

And was not, comforts me: 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink 
i* the scale. 

VIII 

What is he but a brute 

Whose flesh has soul to suit, 

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want 

play ? 45 

To man, propose this test — 
Thy body at its best, 
How far can that project thy soul on its lone 



way? 



IX 



Yet gifts should prove their use: 
I own the Past profuse 50 

Of power each side, perfection every turn: 
Eyes, ears took in their dole, 
Brain treasured up the whole; 
Should not the heart beat once "How good to 
live and learn " ? 



Not once beat " Praise be thine! 55 

I see the whole design, 
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too : 
Perfect I call thy plan : 
Thanks that I was a man ! 
Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what thou 
shaltdo!" 60 



RABBI BEN EZRA 141 

XI 

For pleasant is this flesh; 
Our soul, in its rose-mesh 
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: 
Would we some prize might hold 
To match those manifold 65 

Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did 
best! 

XII 

Let us not always say, 

"Spite of this flesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the 

whole I" 
As the bird wings and sings, 70 

Let us cry, "All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than 

flesh helps soul!" 

XIII 

Therefore I summon age 
To grant youth's heritage, 

Life's struggle having so far reached its term : 75 
Thence shall I pass, approved 
A man, for aye removed 

From the developed brute; a God though in 
the germ. 

XIV 

And I shall thereupon 

Take rest, ere I be gone 80 

Once more on my adventure brave and new: 



142 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Fearless and unperplexed, 

When I wage battle next, 

What weapons to select, what armor to indue. 

xv 

Youth ended, I shall try 85 

My gain or loss thereby; 

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 

And I shall weigh the same, 

Give life its praise or blame : 

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being 

old. 90 

XVI 

For, note when evening shuts, 
A certain moment cuts 
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray : 
A whisper from the west 

Shoots — "Add this to the rest, 95 

Take it and try its worth: here dies another 
day" 

XVII 

So, still within this life, 
Though lifted o'er its strife, 
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 
"This rage was right i' the main, 100 

That acquiescence vain: 

The Future I may face now I have proved the 
Past." 

XVIII 

For more is not reserved 

To man, with soul just nerved 

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: 105 



RABBI BEN EZRA 143 

Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's 
true play. 

XIX 

As it was better, youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth, no 

Toward making, than repose on aught found 

made: 
So, better, age, exempt 
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor 

be afraid ! 

xx 

Enough now, if the Right ns 

And Good and Infinite 

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine 

own, 
With knowledge absolute, 
Subject to no dispute 
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel 

alone. 120 

xxi 

Be there, for once and all, 
Severed great minds from small, 
Announced to each his station in the Past! 
Was I, the world arraigned, 

Were they, my soul disdained, 125 

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us 
peace at last! 



144 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

XXII 

Now, who shall arbitrate? 
Ten men love what I hate, 
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; 
Ten, who in ears and eyes 130 

Match me : we all surmise, 
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my 
soul believe? 

XXIII 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called "work," must sentence pass, 

Things done, that took the eye and had the 

price; 135 

O'er which, from level stand, 
The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in 

a trice: 

XXIV 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 140 

So passed in making up the main account; 
All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the 
man's amount: 

XXV 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 145 

Into a narrow act, 

Fancies that broke through language and es- 
caped ; 



RABBI BEN EZRA 145 

All I could never be, 

All, men ignored in me, 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the 

pitcher shaped. 150 

XXVI 

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, 
That metaphor! and feel 

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, — 
Thou, to whom fools propound, 
When the wine makes its round, 155 

"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, 
seize to-day ! " 

XXVII 

Fooh All that is, at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: 
What entered into thee, ieo 

That was, is, and shall be: 
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and 
clay endure. 

XXVIII 

He fixed thee mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance, 

This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: 165 
Machinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent, 

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently im- 
pressed. 



146 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

XXIX 

What though the earlier grooves 
Which ran the laughing loves 170 

Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? 
What though about thy rim, 
Scull-things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner 
stress ? 

XXX 

Look not thou down but up! 175 

To uses of a cup, 

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's 

peal, 
The new wine's foaming flow, 
The Master's lips a-glow! 
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst 

thou with earth's wheel? 180 

XXXI 

But I need, now as then, 
Thee, God, who mouldest men; 
And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 
Did I — to the wheel of life 

With shapes and colors rife, 185 

Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to slake thy 
thirst 

XXXII 

So, take and use thy work, 
Amend what flaws may lurk, 
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 
aim I 



RABBI BEN EZRA 147 

My times be in thy hand! 190 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete 

the samel 

(1864). 



PROSPICE 

Fear death ? to feel the fog in my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 5 

The post of the foe; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, 10 

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be 
gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and for- 
bore, 15 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 20 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute 's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
148 



PROSPICE 149 

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 25 

Then a light, then thy breast, 

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest! 

(1864). 



YOUTH AND ART 



It once might have been, once only: 

We lodged in a street together, 
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, 

I, a lone she-bird of his feather. 

ii 

Your trade was with sticks and clay, 5 

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished, 

Then laughed "They will see some day 
Smith made, and Gibson demolished. " 

in 

My business was song, song, song; 

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, 10 

"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, 

And Grisi's existence embittered ! " 

IV 

I earned no more by a warble 

Than you by a sketch in plaster; 
You wanted a piece of marble, 15 

I needed a music-master. 
150 



YOUTH AND ART 151 



We studied hard in our styles, 

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, 
For air, looked out on the tiles, 

For fun, watched each other's windows. 20 

VI 

You lounged, like a boy of the South, 
Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard too; 

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth 
With fingers the clay adhered to. 

VII 

And I — soon managed to find 25 

Weak points in the flower-fence facing, 

Was forced to put up a blind 
And be safe in my corset-lacing. 

VIII 

No harm ! It was not my fault 

If you never turned your eye's tail up 30 

As I shook upon E in alt, 

Or ran the chromatic scale up : 

rx 

For spring bade the sparrows pair, 

And the boys and girls gave guesses, 
And stalls in our street looked rare 35 

With bulrush and watercresses. 



152 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



x 



Why did not you pinch a flower 

In a pellet of clay and fling it ? 
Why did not I put a power 

Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? 40 



XI 



I did look, sharp as a lynx 

(And yet the memory rankles), 

When models arrived, some minx 

Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles, 



XII 



But I think I gave you as good ! 45 

"That foreign fellow, — who can know 

How she pays, in a playful mood, 
For his tuning her that piano ? " 



XIII 



Could you say so, and never say, 

"Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 60 

And I fetch her from over the way, 

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ? " 



XIV 



No, no: you would not be rash, 

Nor I rasher and something over: 
You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, 65 

And Grisi yet lives in clover. 



YOUTH AND ART 153 



xv 



But you meet the Prince at the Board, 

I'm queen myself at bals-pares, 
I Ve married a rich old lord, 

And you're dubbed knight and an R.A. 60 



XVI 

Each life unfulfilled, you see; 

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: 
We have not sighed deep, laughed free, 

Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy, 

XVII 

And nobody calls you a dunce, 65 

And people suppose me clever: 

This could but have happened once, 

And we missed it, lost it for ever. 

(1864). 



APPARENT FAILURE 

u We shall soon lose a celebrated building. " 

— Paris Newspaper. 

i 

No, for I '11 save it! Seven years since, 

I passed through Paris, stopped a day 
To see the baptism of your Prince; 

Saw, made my bow, and went my way : 
Walking the heat and headache off, 5 

I took the Seine-side, you surmise, 
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, 

Cavour's appeal and BuoPs replies, 
So sauntered till — what met my eyes ? 

ii 

Only the Doric little Morgue! 10 

The dead-house where you show your drowned : 
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, 

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. 
One pays one's debt in such a case; 

I plucked up heart and entered, — stalked, 15 

Keeping a tolerable face 

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked: 
Let them ! No Briton 's to be balked ! 

in 

First came the silent gazers ; next, 
A screen of glass, we 're thankful for ; 20 

154 



APPARENT FAILURE 155 

Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text f 

The three men who did most abhor 
Their life in Paris yesterday, 

So killed themselves : and now, enthroned 
Each on his copper couch, they lay 25 

Fronting me, waiting to be owned. 
I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned. 

IV 

Poor men, God made, and all for that ! 

The reverence struck me; o'er each head 
Religiously was hung its hat, 30 

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, 
Sacred from touch : each had his berth, 

His bounds, his proper place of rest, 
Who last night tenanted on earth 

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, — 35 

Unless the plain asphalt seemed best. 

v 
How did it happen, my poor boy? 

You wanted to be Buonaparte 
And have the Tuileries for toy, 

And could not, so it broke your heart ? 40 

You, old one by his side, I judge, 

Were, red as blood, a socialist, 
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge 

You 've gained what no Republic missed? 
Be quiet, and unclench your fist! 45 

VI 

And this — why, he was red in vain, 
Or black, — poor fellow that is blue! 



156 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

What fancy was it, turned your brain ? 

Oh, women were the prize for you ! 
Money gets women, cards and dice 50 

Get money, and ill-luck gets just 
The copper couch and one clear nice 

Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, 
The right thing to extinguish lust ! 

VII 

It J s wiser being good than bad; 55 

It 's safer being meek than fierce: 
It 's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 60 

Though a wide compass round be fetched; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 

(1864). 



HERVE RIEL 



On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France! 
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 

blue, 
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the 
Ranee, 
With the English fleet in view. 



II 

'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in 

full chase; 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damfreville; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all; 10 

And they signalled to the place 
"Help the winners of a race! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — or, 

quicker still, 
Here 's the English can and will! ,, 

157 



158 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

in 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on 

board; 15 

"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 
pass?" laughed they: 
" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the ' Formidable ' here with her twelve and eighty 
guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single nar- 
row wav, 
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty 

tons, 20 

And with flow at full beside ? 
Now, 9 t is slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
While rdck stands or water runs, 

Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 25 

IV 

Then was called a council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate: 

"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them 

take in tow 
All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and 

bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 30 

Better run the ships aground!" 

(Ended Damfreville his speech). 
"Not a minute more to wait! 
Let the Captains all and each 



HERVE KIEL 159 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 

beach! 35 

France must undergo her fate. 



"Give the word!" But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all 
these 
— A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate — first, second, 

third ? 40 

No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete! 

But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 

VI 

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cried 

Herve Riel: 45 

"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, 
fools, or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the sound- 
ings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river dis- 
embogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying 's 

for ? so 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay, 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 



160 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe 

me there 's a way! 55 

Only let me lead the line, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable' clear, 
Make the others follow mine, 
And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 

well, 60 

Right to Solidor past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound; 
And if one ship misbehave, 

— Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I've nothing but my life, — here's my head!" 

cries Herve Riel. 65 

VII 

Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 70 

Still the north-wind, by God's grace! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's 

profound ! 75 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 

How they follow in a flock, 



HERVE KIEL 161 

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 
Not a spar that comes to grief ! 
The peril, see, is past, 80 

All are harbored to the last, 
And just as Herve Riel hollas (i Anchor !" — sure as 

fate, 
Up the English come — too late! 

VIII 

So, the storm subsides to calm : 

They see the green trees wave 85 

On the heights o'erlooking Gr£ve. 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
1 i Just our rapture to enhance, 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 

As they cannonade away! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee! " 
How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's counte- 
nance! 
Out burst all with one accord, 

1 ' This is Paradise for Hell ! 95 

Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the thing!" 
What a shout, and all one word, 

"HervSRiel!" 
As he stepped in front once more, 100 

Not a symptom of surprise 

In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
Just the same man as before. 



162 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

IX 

Then said Damf reville, ' ' My friend, 

I must speak out at the end, 105* 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the King his ships, 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse! no 

Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not 
Damfreville." 

x 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 

On the bearded mouth that spoke, 115 

As the honest heart laughed through 

Those frank eyes of Breton blue: 

"Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty 's done, 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it 

but a run? — 12a 

Since 't is ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come! A good whole holiday! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
Aurore ! " 
That he asked and that he got, — nothing more, 125 

XI 

Name and deed alike are lost: 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell: 



HERVE KIEL 163 

Not a head in white and black 

On a single fishing-smack, 130 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to 
wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence Eng- 
land bore the bell. 
Go to Paris: rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ! 135 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve 
Riel. 
So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the 

Belle Aurore! 

(1871). 



THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 

PROLOGUE 

Such a starved bank of moss 

Till, that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across: 

Violets were born ! 

Sky — what a scowl of cloud 5 

Till, near and far, 
Ray on ray split the shroud: 

Splendid, a star! 

World — how it walled about 

Life with disgrace 10 

Till God's own smile came out: 

That was thy face! 

EPILOGUE 

i 

What a pretty tale you told me 

Once upon a time 
— Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) 15 

Was it prose or was it rhyme, 
Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, 
While your shoulder propped my head. 

164 



THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 165 

ii 

Anyhow there 's n forgetting 

This much if no more, 20 

That a poet (pray, no petting!) 

Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 
Went where suchlike used to go, 
Singing for a prize, you know. 

in 

Well, he had to sing, nor merely 25 

Sing but play the lyre; 
Playing was important clearly 

Quite as singing: I desire, 
Sir, you keep the fact in mind 
For a purpose that 's behind. 30 

IV 

There stood he, while deep attention 

Held the judges round, 
— Judges able, I should mention, 

To detect the slightest sound 
Sung or played amiss : such ears 35 

Had old judges, it appears! 



None the less he sang out boldly, 

Played in time and tune, 
Till the judges, weighing coldly 

Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, 40 

Sure to smile "In vain one tries 
Picking faults out: take the prize 1" 



166 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

VI 

When, a mischief! Were they seven 

Strings the lyre possessed ? 
Oh, and afterwards eleven, 45 

Thank you! Well, sir, — who had guessed 
Such ill luck in store ? — it happed 
One of those same seven strings snapped. 

VII 

All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket 

(What "cicada?" Pooh!) 50 

— Some mad thing that left its thicket 

For mere love of music — flew 
With its little heart on fire, 
Lighted on the crippled lyre. 

VIII 

So that when (Ah, joy!) our singer 55 

For his truant string 
Feels with disconcerted finger, 

What does cricket else but fling 
Fiery heart forth, sound the note 
Wanted by the throbbing throat ? 60 

rx 

Ay, and ever to the ending, 

Cricket chirps at need, 
Executes the hand's intending, 

Promptly, perfectly, — indeed 
Saves the singer from defeat 65 

With her chirrup low and sweet. 



THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 167 



Till, at ending, all the judges 

Cry with one assent, 
"Take the prize — a prize who grudges 

Such a voice and instrument? 70 

Why, we took your lyre for harp, 
So it thrilled us forth F sharp!" 

XI 

Did the conqueror spurn the creature, 

Once its service done ? 
That 's no such uncommon feature 75 

In the case when Music's son 
Finds his Lotte's power too spent 
For aiding soul-development. 

XII 

No ! This other on returning 

Homeward, prize in hand, 80 

Satisfied his bosom's yearning: 

(Sir, I hope you understand ! ) 
— Said "Some record there must be 
Of this cricket's help to me!" 

XIII 

So, he made himself a statue: 85 

Marble stood, life-size; 
On the lyre, he pointed at you, 

Perched his partner in the prize; 
Never more apart you found 
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. 90 



168 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

XIV 

That 's the tale : its application ? 

Somebody I know 
Hopes one day for reputation 

Through his poetry that 's — Oh, 
All so learned and so wise 95 

And deserving of a prize ! 

xv 

If he gains one, will some ticket, 

When his statue 's built, 
Tell the gazer '"T was a cricket 

Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt 100 

Sweet and low, when strength usurped 
Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 

XVI 

"For as victory was nighest, 

While I sang and played, — 
With my lyre at lowest, highest, 105 

Right alike, — one string that made 
'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain, 
Never to be heard again, — 

XVII 

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered, 

Perched upon the place 110 

Vacant left, and duly uttered 

'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 
Asked the treble to atone 
For its somewhat sombre drone." 



THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 169 

XVIII 

But you don't know music! Wherefore us 

Keep on casting pearls 
To a — poet ? All I care for 

Is — to tell him that a girl's 
"Love" comes aptly in when gruff 

Grows his singing. (There, enough!) 

(1878). 



PHEIDIPPIDES 

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock 

Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to all; 

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in 
praise 

— Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and 
spear! 

Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, 5 

Now, henceforth and for ever, — O latest to whom I up- 
raise 

Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture 
and flock! 

Present to help, potent to save, Pan — patron I call! 

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return ! 
See, 't is myself here standing alive, no spectre that 

speaks ! 10 

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens 

and you, 
"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! 
Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your 

command I obeyed, 
Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which a fire runs 

through, 
Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights 

did I burn 15 

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. 

170 



PHEIDIPPIDES 171 

Into their midst I broke : breath served but for ' ' Persia 

has come. 
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves' -tribute, water and earth; 
Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall Athens 

sink, 
Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly die, 20 
Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the 

stander-by ? 
Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch 

o'er destruction's brink ? 
How, — when ? No care for my limbs ! — there 's lightning 

in all and some — 
Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth ! " 

O my Athens — Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta respond ? 25 
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, 
Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified 

hate ! 
Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. 

I stood 
Quivering, — the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch 

from dry wood : 
"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate ? 30 
Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene, are Spartans a quarry be- 
yond 
Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 
' Ye must'!" 

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at 

last! 
"Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may Sparta 

befriend ? 



172 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue at 

stake! 35 

Count we no time lost time which lags through respect 

to the gods ! 
Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the 

odds 
In your favor, so long as the moon, half -orbed, is unable 

to take 
Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Already she rounds to it 

fast: 
Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment sus- 

pend. ,, 40 

Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had moul- 
dered to ash! 
That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away 

was I back, 
— Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and 

the vile! 
Yet "O gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and 

plain, 
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them 

again, 45 

"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid 

you erewhile? 
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too 

rash 
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack ! 

"Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to enwreathe 
Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's 

foot, 50 



PHEIDIPPIDES 173 

You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn 

a slave! 
Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste tract ! 
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if 

slacked 
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave 
No deity deigns to drape with verdure? — at least I can 

breathe, 55 

Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the 

muter 

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; 
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar 
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure 

across : 60 

''Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the 

fosse ? 
Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, 

thus I obey — 
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No 

bridge 
Better ! " — when — ha! what was it I came on, of wonders 

that are ? 

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majestical Pan! 65 

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his 

hoof: 
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly — the 

curl 
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's 

awe 



174 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I 



saw. 



Halt, Pheidippides ! " — halt I did, my brain of a whirl: 70 
"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence ? " he gracious 

began : 
"How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof? 

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! 

Wherefore ? Than I what godship to Athens more help- 
ful of old? 

Ay, and still, and for ever her friend! Test Pan, trust 75 
me! 

Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith 

In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The 
Goat-God saith: 

When Persia — so much as strews not the soil — is cast in 
the sea, 

Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most 
and least, 

Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the 

free and the bold!' 80 

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the 

pledge!'" 
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
— Fennel, — I grasped it a-tremble with dew — whatever 

it bode) 
"While, as for thee ..." But enough! He was gone. 

If I ran hitherto — 
Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but 

flew. 85 

Parnes to Athens — earth no more, the air was my road : 



PHEIDIPPIDES 175 

Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the 

razor's edge! 
Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare! 



Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of 

Greece, 
Whose limbs did duty indeed, — what gift is promised 

thyself ? 90 

Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands of 

he,r son ! " 
Rosily blushed the youth: he paused; but, lifting at 

length 
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the 

rest of his strength 
Into the utterance — "Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou 

hast done 
Count on a worthy reward ! Henceforth be allowed thee 

release 95 

From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in 

pelf!' 

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my 

mind! 
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may 

grow — 
Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, under the 

deep, 
Whelm her away for ever; and then,— no Athens to 

save, — ioo 

Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave, — 
Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall 

creep 



176 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Close to my knees, — recount how the God was awful yet 

kind, 
Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding him — 

so!" 



Unf oreseeing one ! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day : 105 

So, when Persia was dust, all cried ' i To Akropolis ! 

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! 

'Athens is saved, thank Pan/ go shout ! " He flung down 
his shield, 

Ran like fire once more : and the space 'twixt the Fennel- 
field 

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs 

through, no 

Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine 
through clay, 

Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the bliss ! 

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of 

salute 
Is still "Rejoice!" — his word which brought rejoicing 

indeed. 
So is Pheidippides happy for ever, — the noble strong man 115 
Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom 

a god loved so well; 
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was 

suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be mute: 
' ' Athens is saved!" — Pheidippides dies in the shout for 

his meed. 

(1879). 



ECHETLOS 

Here is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead 
and gone, 

Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling 
on, 

Did the deed and saved the world, for the day was Mar- 
athon ! 

No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought away 
In his tribe and file : up, back, out, down — was the spear- 
arm play: 5 
Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing 
that day! 

But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no 

spear, 
As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the 

rear, 
Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now 

here 

Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his 

wear, 10 

Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and 
bare, 

Went he ploughing on and on : he pushed with a plough- 
man's share. 

177 



178 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

Did the weak mid-line give way, as tunnies on whom the 

shark 
Precipitates his bulk? Did the right-wing halt when, 

stark 
On his heap of slain lay stretched Kallimachos Pol- 

emarch ? 15 

Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the 

need, 
The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth 

of weed, 
As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the 

Mede. 

But the deed done, battle won, — nowhere to be descried 
On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh, — look far 

and wide 20 

From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last blood- 
plashed sea-side, — 

Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs thonged 

and brown, 
Shearing and clearing still with the share before which — 

down 
To the dust went Persia's pomp, as he ploughed for 

Greece, that clown! 

How spake the Oracle ? ' ' Care for no name at all ! 25 

Say but just this: 'We praise one helpful whom we 

call 
The Holder of the Ploughshare.' The great deed ne'er 

grows small." 



ECHETLOS 179 

Not the great name! Sing — woe for the great name Mil- 

tiades 

And its end at Paros isle ! Woe for Themistokles 

— Satrap in Sardis court! Name not the clown like these! 

(1880). 



WHY I AM A LIBERAL 

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do, 
All that I am now, all I hope to be, — 
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free 

Body and soul the purpose to pursue, 

God traced for both ? If fetters, not a few, 5 

Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, 
These shall I bid men — each in his degree 

Also God-guided — bear, and gayly too ? 

But little do or can the best of us : 
That little is achieved through Liberty. 10 

Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus, 
His fellow shall continue bound ? Not I, 

Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss 
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." 

(1885). 



180 



ASOLANDO 



EPILOGUE 



At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, impris- 
oned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 

—Pity me? 5 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly ? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 

— Being — who ? 10 

One who never turned his back but marched breast for- 
ward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake. 15 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
"Strive and thrive !" cry "Speed, — fight on, fare ever 

There as here!" 

(1890). 
181 



NOTES 



SONGS FROM " PIPPA PASSES " 

The circumstances under which Browning conceived the 
character of Felippa, or Pippa, the little silk-winder of Asolo, 
have been already explained in the Introduction (see page XIV). 
The first selection, "All service ranks the same with God," is 
the New Year's Hymn which she sings as she rises from bed on 
her one holiday in the year. During the day she passes in and 
out of the village, singing her artless songs, and unconsciously 
influencing the lives of those about her. The second song here 
given, "The year's at the Spring," awakens two wicked people 
to a sense of their guilt and the divine government of the world. 
The third song, "Give her but a least excuse to love me," 
rouses a young painter to a higher conception of love and art. 
The explanation of this song is given in the lines which follow 
it in the original : — 

What name was that the little girl sang forth? 
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
And peasants sing how once a certain page 
Pined for the grace of her so far above 
His power of doing good to, " Kate the Queen — 
She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed, 
"Need him to help her!" 

Browning gives us in the first five lines of each stanza the 
page's song; in the last four the comments of the Queen and her 
maid, who overhear him. Caterina (or Kate) Cornaro was a 
Venetian citizen who married the King of Cyprus, and after his 
death, resigning her authority to the Republic, retired to keep 
a small court at the Venetian village of Asolo, where she 
"wielded her little sceptre for her people's good, and won their 
love by gentleness and grace." 

Page 4, Line 18. — jesses. Straps for hawks' legs. 

183 



184 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



CAVALIER TUNES 

It should be borne in mind that these songs are "dramatic 
lyrics" — that is to say, they represent not Browning's own 
sentiments, but feelings and opinions which he ascribes to 
imaginary persons. His own view of the great struggle between 
the King and the Parliament in England in the seventeenth 
century was very different from that here expressed, as we see 
from his drama, Strafford. There he has expressed an admira- 
tion for the Puritan leaders which he repeated at the end of his 
life in Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day 
(Charles Avison). In this poem he looks 

back to times of England's best! 
Parliament stands for privilege — life and limb 
Guards Hollis, Haselrig, Strode, Hampden, Pym, 
The famous Five. There's rumor of arrest. 
Bring up the Train Bands, Southwark! They protest: 
Shall we not all join chorus? . . . 

Fife, trump, drum, sound! and singers then, 
Marching, say "Pym, the man of men!" 
Up, heads, your proudest — out, throats, your loudest — 
"Somerset's Pym!" 

Strafford from the block, Eliot from the den, 
Foes, friends, shout "Pym, our citizen!" 
Wail, the foes he quelled, — hail, the friends he held, 
"Tavistock's Pym!" 

Hearts prompt heads, hands that ply the pen 

Teach babes unborn the where and when 

— Tyrants, he braved them, — patriots, he saved them — 

"Westminster's Pym!" 

The three Cavalier Tunes voice the feelings of the supporters 
of the royal cause at three different stages of the struggle: the 
first, just before the hoisting of the royal standard at Notting- 
ham at the outbreak of the war; the second, in the middle 
period, when Cromwell's troopers, the famous " Ironsides," 
were beginning to turn the tide in favor of the Parliament; 
the third, when the Parliamentary cause had triumphed, and 
only a few royalist castles in remote parts of the country were 
holding out. 



NOTES 185 



5, 2. — crop -headed. J. R. Green in his History of the English 
People gives the following explanation of the names " Round- 
head" and " Cavalier ": "To wear his hair long and flowing 
almost to the shoulder was at this time the mark of a gentleman, 
whether Puritan or anti-Puritan. Servants, on the other hand, 
or apprentices, wore the hair closely cropped to the head. The 
crowds who flocked to Westminster were chiefly made up of 
London apprentices; and their opponents taunted them as 
1 Roundheads. ' They replied by branding the courtiers about 
Whitehall as soldiers of fortune or ' Cavaliers. ' The gentlemen 
who gathered round the King in the coming struggle were as 
far from being military adventurers as the gentlemen who 
fought for the Parliament were London apprentices; but the 
words soon passed into nicknames for the whole mass of royal- 
ists and patriots.' ' 

7-15. — Pym, Hampden, Hazelrig, and Fiennes were all lead- 
ing men on the Parliamentary side. So was young Harry, the 
younger Sir Henry Vane, who was Governor of the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony 1636-7. There is a fine statue of him in the en- 
trance hall of the Boston Public Library. At the Restoration 
he was exempted from the Act of Pardon and Oblivion, and 
executed. 

7. — carles. Churls or boors, low, rude fellows. 

8. — paries. Debates. (French parler, to speak.) An old word 
used by Shakespeare. 

14. — obsequies' knell. The bell rung at his funeral. Serve is 
imperative, or subjunctive of wish. 

6, 16. — Rupert. Prince of the Palatinate, a nephew of 
Charles I. After serving in Germany in the Thirty Years' War, 
he became famous as a dashing cavalry leader in the royalist 
army. He was Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, and a 
large tract of territory in the far North of the American conti- 
nent for a long time bore the name of Prince Rupert's Land. 
The terminal port of the new Grand Trunk Pacific Railway on 
the Pacific Coast was a year or two ago named Rupertstown to 
perpetuate his memory. 

20. — snarls. Plots, intrigues. 
23. — Nottingham. See above. 



186 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



ii 

3. — rouse. A toast drunk with a full bumper. 

7, 16. — Noll. The Cavalier nickname for Oliver Cromwell. 
He was the leader of the famous " Ironsides," and became the 
greatest general on the Parliamentary side. " He took for his 
soldiers sternly Puritan men, who had their hearts in his cause; 
but he was not content with religious zeal alone. Everyone 
who served under him must undergo the severest discipline. 
After a few months he had a cavalry regiment under his orders 
so fiery, and at the same time so well under restraint, that no 
body of horse on either side could compare with it." — Gardiner's 
History of the Great Civil War. The son of the cavalier who 
sings this song evidently refused to surrender, and was shot by 
CromwelPs troopers as he was laughing them to scorn and 
cheering for the King. 

in 

8, 10. — Castle Brancepeth is in the county of Durham, on the 
river Wear. It was probably chosen by Browning on account 
of its romantic name. 

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

This poem was written for Willie Macready, the son of the 
famous actor for whom Browning wrote his first drama, 
Strafford. Willie was recovering from an illness and wanted a 
poem to illustrate from his paint box. Browning's publisher 
had a blank page at the end of "Dramatic Lyrics," the third 
issue in the Bells and Pomegranates series, and this poem was 
used to fill the gap. It has been probably the most popular 
thing Browning ever wrote. The story is a very old one, going 
back to the mythology of the ancient nations of the earth. 
There is an early seventeenth-century version of the legend 
which resembles Browning's account in many details, though 
he has added touches of his own. It was a common legend in 
the Middle Ages, the period in which Browning places it. Pied 
or piebald means of different colors. See lines 79-82. 

11, 69. — painted tombstone. It was the fashion in the Middle 
Ages to place upon the tomb of a distinguished man a painted 
effigy of him as he appeared in life. 



NOTES 187 

13, 123. — Julius Caesar. Referring to the story of Caesar's 
saving the manuscript of his famous Commentaries on his 
Gallic Wars. The story arose out of the fact that in the siege 
of Alexandria in b. c. 48 the ship in which Caesar was sailing was 
captured, and he was obliged to swim for his life. Froude 
remarks: "Legend is more absurd than usual over this inci- 
dent. It pretends that he swam with one hand, and carried 
his Commentaries, holding them above water with the other. 
As if a general would take his MSS. with him into a hot action! " 

14, 139. — nuncheon. Another word for luncheon. 
158-160. — Claret, Moselle, vin-de -Grave, Hock . . . Rhenish 

Names of wines. 

15, 182. — stiver. A small coin, as we should say, a cent. 

19, 296. — trepanned. Ensnared, kidnapped. 

MY LAST DUCHESS 

Ferrara, which Browning gives as the scene of this poem, is 
a town in North Italy, not far from Venice. It was the capital' 
of the House of Este, who were among the most accomplished 
and the most cruel of the tyrants of the Italian Renascence. 
Symonds says in his Age of the Despots: " Under the House of 
Este, Ferrara was famous throughout Italy for its gaiety and 
splendor. No city enjoyed more brilliant or more frequent 
public shows. Nowhere did the aristocracy retain so much 
feudal magnificence and chivalrous enjoyment. The square 
castle of red brick, which still stands in the middle of the town, 
was thronged with poets, players, fools who enjoyed an almost 
European reputation, court flatterers, knights, pages, scholars, 
and fair ladies. But beneath its cube of solid masonry, on a 
level with the moat, shut out from daylight by the sevenfold 
series of iron bars, lay dungeons in which the objects of the 
Duke's displeasure clanked chains and sighed their lives away." 

20, 3. — Fra. The painter, who is an imaginary character, 
was a monk like Fra Angelico and other Italian artists of the 
Renascence. 

21, 45-6. — There has been much discussion as to whether 
these two lines imply that the Duke gave orders for his wife's 
execution. Professor Corson put the question to Browning 
himself, and quotes his answer thus: " l Yes, I meant that the 
commands were that she should be put to death.' And then 
after a pause he added with a characteristic dash of expression, 



188 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

as if the thought had just started in his m'nd, 'Or he might have 
had her shut up in a convent.' " 

56. — Claus of Innsbruck. An imaginary artist. Innsbruck 
is in the Tyrol. It is famous for the bronze work on the tomb 
of the emperor Maximilian. 

The teacher should take care that the student masters all the 
points in this exquisite example of the dramatic monologue, 
Browning's favorite art form. 

COUNT GISMOND 

This stirring narrative, in which Browning concentrates the 
heroic spirit of mediaeval chivalry, tells in the very words of the 
heroine of the incident a straight-forward story which needs no 
comment; but the reader should not miss the charming equivo- 
cation with which the heroine avoids telling her husband that 
she has been boasting to her friend of his prowess. 

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 

Ratisbon is in Bavaria, on the right bank of the Danube. It 
was stormed by Napoleon in 1809, after an obstinate defence by 
the Austrians. Mrs. Orr says: "The story is true; but its 
actual hero was a man." 

28, 1. — we French. The story is told by a spectator. 
7. — prone. Bending or leaning forward. 

11. — Lannes. One of Napoleon's generals. 

29, 29. — flag-bird. The Napoleonic standard was a tricolor 
powdered with golden bees, with an eagle on the central 
stripe. 

— vans. Wings. Latin vannus, a fan for winnowing grain. 
34-5. — film is nominative to sheathes. 

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM 
GHENT TO AIX" 

This poem was written in 1838, when Browning paid his first 
visit to Italy. He sailed from London in the "Norham Castle," 
a merchant vessel bound for Trieste on which he was the only 
passenger. In the Bay of Biscay, the weather was exceedingly 
stormy, and Browning suffered severely from sea sickness; but 
the captain had him brought up on deck as they neared the 
Straits of Gibraltar, that he might not miss the sight of the 



NOTES 189 

celebrated fortress. It was then that he wrote Home Thoughts, 
from the Sea (p. 42), and "How They Brought the Good News 
from Ghent to Aix." Browning gives a very interesting account 
of the composition of the latter poem in a letter addressed to 
Mr. A. E. Sloan in 1871, and recently published: "'The Ride 
to Ghent ' is altogether an imaginary incident — I remember 
writing it at sea, off the coast of Africa, sitting under the bul- 
wark of the ship for the shade's sake, with a strong wish to be 
once more on the back of a certain good horse ' York/ at home. 
I wrote the poem in pencil on the inside of the cover of Bartoli's 
'Simboli trasportati al Morale ' — nearly the only book I had 
with me. This must account for and excuse the impossible dis- 
tances(even for 'York') between place and place. I fancied 
that Ghent was invested, in extremity, and able at last to re- 
ceive news of succour by some unsuspected line of road — but 
the quantity of galloping was the main thing in my head." 

Browning said on another occasion that this poem has "no 
sort of historical foundation; " but it obviously has a historical 
background in the struggle of the Netherlands for civil and 
religious liberty against Spain in the early seventeenth century. 

30, 10. — pique. The peak or pommel of the saddle. 
14. — Lokeren. Twelve miles northeast of Ghent. 
15. — Boom. Sixteen miles east of Lokeren. 

16. — Diiffeld. Twelve miles east of Boom, and a little north 
of Mecheln (Mechlin or Malines) famous for its church tower and 
chime. 

31, 19. — Aershot. Fifteen miles from Diiffeld. 

22. — at last. He could not see his horse before on account of 
the darkness of the night and the misty morning. 

31. — Hasselt. Twenty-four miles from Aershot, and seventy- 
nine from Ghent, according to the route followed. 

38. — Looz and Tongres are out of the direct road from 
Hasselt to Aix, a distance of about forty miles. 

41. — Dalhem. This is also out of the way, but these small 
inaccuracies are not surprising in view of the circumstances 
under which the poem was written, as described above. 

— a dome-spire. The cupola of the octagon of the cathedral 
at Aix, built by Charlemagne for his tomb. 

Concerning the rhythm of "How They Brought the Good 
News from Ghent to Aix," Joaquin Miller tells this interesting 
little anecdote. He had been invited by the Archbishop of 
Dublin to meet Browning, Dean Stanley, Houghton, and 



190 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

others. "Two of the archbishop's beautiful daughters had 
been riding in the park with the Earl of Aberdeen. 'And did 
you gallop?' asked Browning of the younger beauty. 'I 
galloped, Joyce [Dirck] galloped, we galloped all three.' Then 
we all laughed at the happy and hearty retort, and Browning, 
beating the time and clang of galloping horses' feet on the 
table with his fingers, repeated the exact measure in Latin 
from Vergil; and the archbishop laughingly took it up, 
in Latin, where he left off. I then told Browning I had an 
order — it was my first — for a poem, from the Oxford Magazine, 
and would like to borrow the measure and spirit of his 'Good 
News' for a prairie fire on the plains, driving buffalo and all 
other life before it into the river. 'Why not borrow from 
Vergil as I did? He is as rich as one of your gold mines, while 
I am but a poor scribe.'" The line Browning quoted from 
Vergil was probably the celebrated one descriptive of galloping 
horses: " Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." 
Notice, however, that Browning has adapted this metre to suit 
himself. Instead of taking Vergil's line of dactylic feet (one 
accented and two unaccented syllables) ending with a spondee, 
he begins his lines always with one or two extra unaccented 
syllables, and always ends the line with an extra accented 
syllable. By some, this poem is scanned as anapaestic (two 
syllables unaccented and one accented) ending with an iamb 
and sometimes beginning with an iamb (an unaccented and an 
accented syllable). But we think it will be found that a deli- 
cate perception of sound will dictate the scanning of the poem 
as dactylic, even if we had not Browning's word for it that he 
borrowed the rhythm of it from Vergil. — Porter and Clarke, 
Poems of Robert Browning. 

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 

Browning was proud to remember that the Italian patriot 
Mazzini used to read this poem to his fellow exiles in England 
to show how an Englishman could sympathize with them. 
— Mrs. Orr. 

33, 8. — Charles. Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, be- 
longed to the royal house of Savoy, but was brought up among 
the people, and as a young man expressed sympathy with 
revolutionary principles. He was afterwards accused of be- 
traying Italy, and was bitterly denounced by his former friends. 



NOTES 191 

19. — Metternich our friend. Said ironically. Metternich, the 
Austrian statesman and diplomatist, was the most determined 
enemy of Italian independence. 

20. — See note above on Charles Albert. 

34, 41. — crypt. Place of concealment; commonly used of a 
place for burial. 

46. — My fears were not for myself, but for my country; "on 
me Rested the hopes of Italy." 

35, 75. — duomo. (Italian) Cathedral. 

76. — Tenebrae. A service of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which involves the gradual extinction of the lights on the altar. 
The Latin word literally means "darkness." 

81. — It was not unusual for a priest to render service to the 
cause of Italian liberty. 

37, 125-7. — Charles Albert became King of Sardinia in 1831 
and resigned the crown to his son, Victor Emmanuel, in 1849. 
He retired to Portugal, where he died in the same year, lt broken- 
hearted and misunderstood." The patriot's wish as expressed 
by Browning was, therefore, fulfilled four years after the poem 
was published. Charles Albert's position was a very difficult 
one, and historians generally take a more favorable view of his 
conduct than is here given. Browning has merely given char- 
acteristic expression to the sentiment of the ardent Italian 
patriots of the time. 

138-44. — These lines forcefully represent the division of 
opinion in Italy during the apparently fruitless struggles for 
independence. 

THE LOST LEADER 

The suggestion for this early poem was undoubtedly Words- 
worth's abandonment of the Liberal principles of his youth for 
the reactionary Conservatism of his old age; but it was only a 
suggestion. "Once call my fancy portrait Wordsworth," 
Browning wrote, "and how much more ought one to say." In 
another letter he speaks of Wordsworth's "moral and intellect- 
ual superiority," and protests against taking this poem as an 
attempt to draw his real likeness. It is really a character study 
from Browning's own imagination, and should be so regarded, 
in justice to both poets. 

40, 29-30. — It is best for him to fight for the side he has 
chosen as well as he can, to fight so well indeed as to threaten 



192 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

us with defeat before the hour of our final triumph. "Then let 
him receive/' etc. 

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 

It is interesting to contrast Browning's preference for English 
birds and flowers, expressed in this poem after his earlier visits 
to the Continent, with the love of Italy breathed in "De Gusti- 
bus — " p. 119), which was written after his settlement with his 
wife in Florence. 

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

As to the composition of this poem, see note above on " How 
They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." 

42, 1-7. — Cape St. Vincent, Cadiz Bay, Trafalgar are all asso- 
ciated with English victories. Gibraltar, the famous rock- 
fortress which guards the entrance to the Mediterranean, has 
been held by Great Britain since its capture in 1704. These 
glorious memories inspire the poet with a sense of his duty to 
his country, and he mingles prayer for the future with praise 
for the past. Say is imperative. "Whoso turns, etc. ... let 
him say 'How can I help England ?'" 

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

This poem was published in Hood's Magazine in 1844, and 
was reprinted, with some slight additions, in Dramatic Romances 
and Lyrics the following year. It will be found on close exam- 
ination to be not so simple as it appears at first sight. But its 
leading thought is clear enough; it is that of Pippa's New 
Year's Hymn, " All service ranks the same with God )} (p. 3). 

THE GLOVE 

The original basis of this poem is to be found in the Essais 
Historiques sur Paris of Poullain de St. Croix: "One day 
whilst Francis I amused himself with looking at a combat 
between his lions, a lady, having let her glove drop, said to De 
Lorges, 'If you would have me believe that you love me as 
much as you swear you do, go and bring back my glove.' De 
Lorges went down, picked up the glove from amidst the fero- 
cious beasts, returned, and threw it in the lady's face; and in 



NOTES 193 

spite of all her advances and cajoleries would never look at her 
again." The incident was versified at the end of the eighteenth 
century by Schiller and in the early years of the nineteenth by 
Leigh Hunt; their versions should be compared with Browning's, 
which gives the story a different ending and completely changes 
the point of view. He puts the tale into the mouth of Peter 
Ronsard (1524-85), at one time page to Francis I and after- 
wards the leading French poet of his time. Ronsard was a 
classicist, and begins his story with an apt quotation from 
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) he made in reply to the king's 
challenge. 

47, 14. — the merest Ixions. As fickle as Ixi'on, who betrayed 
the confidence of Jupiter by making love to Juno, and was con- 
demned to revolve ceaselessly on a wheel in Tartarus. 

48, 45. — Clement Marot (1496-1544). A court poet of an 
earlier generation than Ronsard; he translated the Psalms, and 
was driven into exile on account of his Protestant sympathies. 

50. — Ilium Juda Leonem de Tribu. A familiar phrase from 
the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible. "The lion of the 
tribe of Judah." 

52, 162. — Nemean. The slaying of the Neme'an lion was one 
of the labors of Hercules. 

53, 189. — Venienti occurrite morbo. A Latin proverb, equiva- 
lent to "Prevention is better than cure"; literally, "Meet the 
disease when it is coming on." The lady thought it wiser to 
test De Lorge's affection before marriage than after. 

190. — theorbo. A stringed instrument of music in common 
use about the time of the story. 

SAUL 

Browning found the suggestion for this, one of his finest 
religious poems, in the Old Testament narrative of Saul's de- 
pression and its relief by the harping of David, the shepherd 
boy — I Samuel xvi. 14-23, which the teacher would do well 
to read to the class in order to show how the poet has filled with 
life and color the mere hints of the original. Browning has 
read into the ancient story not only doctrines and ideas taken 
from the New Testament, but modern religious views and senti- 
ments. 

54, 1. — Abner. The son of Ner, captain of Saul's host. See 
1 Samuel, xxvi. 5. 



194 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

56, 36-41. — Professor Albert S. Cook suggests that Browning 
obtained his hints for these tunes from Longus's romance of 
"Daphnis and Chloe." The first is found on pp. 303-4 (Smith's 
Translation, Bohn ed.), "He ran through all variations of 
pastoral rrelody, he played the tune which the oxen obey, and 
which at 1 • cts tne goats, — that in which the sheep delight, " etc. ; 
pp. 332- 4, "... standing under the shade of a beech-tree, he 
took his pipe from his scrip and breathed into it very gently. 
The goats stood still, merely lifting up their heads. Next he 
played the pasture tune, upon which they all put down their 
heads and began to graze. Now he produced some notes soft and 
sweet in tone; at once his herd lay down. After this he piped 
in a sharp key, and they ran off to the wood, as if a wolf were 
in sight/ ' In answer to the question as to whether there is any 
historical foundation for David's songs, Rabbi Charles Fleischer 
of Boston replied in a letter to the editors: "I believe that 
David's songs in Browning's poem Saul are the inspired melo- 
dies of our nineteenth century David rather than the songs of 
Israel's poetic shepherd-king. . . . While, then, I believe that 
these melodies in Saul were not current among the Jews of old, 
I know that they would serve well to express beliefs and ideals 
characteristic of the best minds among the Jews of to-day." — 
Porter and Clarke. 

57, 45. — Jerboa. The jumping hare. 

66, 203. — Hebron was one of the cities of refuge, but Brown- 
ing evidently takes it as the name of a mountain. 

67, 204. — Kidron. A brook near Jerusalem. 

The first nine stanzas of this poem (to line 96) were published 
in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics in 1845; the later stanzas 
were written after his marriage, and published in Men and 
Women (1855). The latter part shows a marked advance in 
intensity of religious conviction, probably due to Mrs. Brown- 
ing's influence. The student should note that David first 
played on his harp (36-60); then sang (68-190); and finally 
spoke (237-312). The inner structure of the poem should be 
carefully studied so as to bring out the gradual rise of theme 
from external nature to human activities and sympathies, from 
the glory of kingship to the glory of fame, and so to the culmina- 
tion of Divine Love as manifested in the Incarnation. 



NOTES 195 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

This poem was written when Browning was in Rome in the 
winter of 1853-4, and is said to have been suggested by the 
contrast between the present desolation of the Campagna and 
its former magnificence; but the scene is imaginatively treated, 
and cannot be identified with any place in particular. The 
living love, even of an obscure boy and girl, counted for more 
with Browning than all the dead glories of the earth. 

EVELYN HOPE 

This poem expresses in the simplest form Browning's view 
of love as a relation which abides even beyond death. His 
spiritualization of sensuous beauty in stanza v may be paralleled 
from The Statue and the Bust: — 

Where is the use of the lip's red charm, 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, 
And the blood that blues the inside arm — 
Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine? 

For the Platonism of stanzas iv and vi compare Cristina: — 

Ages past the soul existed, 
Here an age 'tis resting merely, 
And hence fleets again for ages, 
While the true end, sole and single, 
It stops here for is, this love-way, 
With some other soul to mingle. 

The whole subject has been discussed by G. W. Cooke in an 
excellent paper on "Browning's Theory of Romantic Love" 
(Boston Browning Society Papers). 

UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY 

This poem may be described as an " inverted idyll "; that is to 
say, while the idyll sets forth the joys of the country in contrast 
with the artificial life of the city, this poem sets forth the at- 
tractions of city life in contrast with the dulness of the country. 
Browning's own view is, of course, very far from that of the 
" Italian person of quality " which he here sets forth with so 



196 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

much humor and not a little irony. " In other poems Browning 
has rendered the spirit of Italy in her art, her architecture, her 
music — the glory and shame of her past, the new strivings for 
united Italy — but here he has given us the simple charm of the 
' land of lands ' — the unexplained and unexplainable attraction 
of every-day Italy herself — the fascination of the life of the 
meanest little town, the perpetual movement, the cheerful noise 
and bustle, which somehow are only piquantly interesting. The 
traveller to-day still finds much interest in the doings of the 
city square. A responsive chant under the window in the early 
morning calls him to see the Host passing under its awning- 
canopy with attending acolytes; a wailing dirge at nightfall 
accompanies a funeral procession with hooded figures and 
torches; a collection for charity, or a lottery, produces a gather- 
ing of citizens, soldiers, and police, all talking and all revelling 
in the to-do; while water is drawn from the fountain and vege- 
tables are washed in its basin all day long. Beautiful are the 
mountains, and the olive trees, and fire-flies, but anyone with 
a taste for humanity will sympathize with the lover of city life 
who is banished by poverty to his mountain villa, and will enjoy 
the humor of Browning's delineation of his feelings." — L. A. 
Fisher in Poems of Tennyson and Browning, edited by F. H. 
.'Sykes. 

82, 4. — by Bacchus. Per Bacco is still a common Italian 
oath. 

83, 19-20. — With this picture of the Italian landscape in 
spring may be compared the prose of J. A. Symonds (New 
Italian Sketches): " Nothing changes in Italy. The wooden 
ploughs are those which Vergil knew. The sight of one of 
them would save an intelligent lad much trouble in mastering 
a certain passage in the Georgics. ... I noticed two young 
contadini in one field . . . guiding their ploughs along a hedge 
of olive trees, slanting upwards, the white-horned oxen moving 
slowly through the marl, and the lads bending to press the 
plough-shares home. It was a delicate piece of color — the 
grey mist of the olive branches, the warm smoking earth, the 
creamy flanks of the oxen, the brown limbs and dark eyes of 
the men, who paused awhile to gaze at us, with shadows cast 
upon the furrows from their tall straight figures." 

84, 39. — diligence. The lumbering stage-coach which was 
the common means of conveyance in Italy before the days of 
railroads. 



NOTES 197 

42. — Pulcinello -trumpet. Blown to announce the puppet 
show. Pulcinello is the droll clown of the Neapolitan comedy, 
and his name is a diminutive of the Ital. pulcino, a young 
chicken. In English it is corrupted into Punchinello, and 
thence to Punch. (Sykes.) 

85, 44. — liberal thieves. Persons suspected of liberal or 
revolutionary views. The speaker, being a " person of quality," 
has no sympathy with the insurrectionist movement which 
preceded the liberation and union of Italy. 

46. — Before the establishment of the present kingdom of 
Italy, the country was divided into a number of petty princi- 
palities and dukedoms. 

48.— Dante (1265-1321), Boccaccio (1313-1375), Petrarca 
(1304-74) are the three great names in early Italian literature. 
St. Jerome (340-420) — the accent is on the first syllable accord- 
ing to English usage — was one of the fathers of the Church, and 
translated the Bible into the Latin version known as the 
Vulgate. Cicero (b. c. 106-43) is the model of classical prose. 
The Reverend Don So-and-so, according to the sonnet, com- 
bined the excellences of all the ages, and was very nearly — not 
quite — equal to St. Paul. 

52. — seven swords. Emblematic of the seven sorrows of the 
Virgin Mary. The piercing sword is based on Luke ii. 35, and 
the seven sorrows are (1) Simeon's prophecy, (2) the flight into 
Egypt, (3) Christ missed, (4) the betrayal, (5) the crucifixion, 
(6) the descent from the cross, (7) the ascension. ( Sykes.) 

56. — The Italian cities still levy municipal duties on articles 
of common consumption, and these are paid on entering the 
gates. 

86, 60. — White shirts and candles were the ordinary marks 
of those who were obliged by the Church to do public penance 
in the olden times. 

62. — Though it is an ecclesiastical procession, the Duke's 
guard brings up the rear, for in those days of revolutionary 
ferment the Church, which usually supported the Government, 
was not universally popular. 

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD 

The title refers to the old proverb, "a woman will always 
have the last word in a quarrel." This "woman's last word," 
however, is not one of recrimination, but of reconciliation and 



198 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

submission. She will even sacrifice what she believes to be 
true (st. iv), lest she should lose her domestic peace as Eve lost 
Paradise. Cf. A Lovers' Quarrel st. xiii: — 

Not from the heart beneath — 
'Twas a bubble born of breath, 

Neither sneer nor vaunt, 

Nor reproach nor taunt. 
See a word, how it severeth! 

Oh, power of life and death 
In the tongue, as the Preacher saith! 

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPPS 

Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85), a musical composer of some 
note in his day, who was for the last years of his life organist 
at St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice, is here taken by Browning as 
an exponent and critic of the frivolous, empty life with which 
the name of this Italian city has long been associated. But 
the toccata speaks to the man who plays it — a student of 
science — not only of the emptiness of life at Venice in the 
eighteenth century, but of the emptiness of life in general, for 
st. xiii is, of course, to be taken ironically; as he thinks of the 
beauty and gaiety of Venice all turned to "dust and ashes/' 
he feels "chilly and grown old," for even so all human activ- 
ities seem to pass away into nothingness. 

The toccata is marked by the repetition of phrases calculated 
to display a peculiar facility of touch (It. toccare, to touch) on 
the musician's part. 

90, 6. — "The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic was insti- 
tuted in 1174 by Pope Alexander III, who gave the Doge a gold 
ring from his own finger in token of the victory achieved by the 
Venetian fleet at Istria over Frederick Barbarossa, in defense 
of the Pope's quarrel. When his Holiness gave the ring, he 
desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea annually, 
in commemoration of the event." — Brewer. 

8.— Shylock's bridge. The Rialto. 

91, 18. — clavichord. An old-fashioned instrument, with keys 
and strings, the predecessor of the modern pianoforte. 

The musical technicalities made use of are thus elucidated 
by Porter and Clarke, Poems of Robert Browning: — 

"The technical musical allusions in the poem are all to be found in the 
7th, 8th, and 9th stanzas. The lesser thirds (line 19) are minor thirds 
(intervals containing three semitones), and are of common occurrence, but 
the diminished sixth is an interval rarely used. Ordinarily a diminished 
sixth (seven semitones), exactly the same interval as a perfect fifth, instead 
of giving a plaintive, mournful, or minor impression, would suggest a feeling 



NOTES 199 

of rest and satisfaction. There is one way, however, in which it can be 
used, — as a suspension, in which the root of the chord on the Lowered super- 
tonic of the scale is suspended from above into the chord with added 
seventh on the super-tonic, making a diminished sixth between the root 
of the first and the third of the second chord. The effect of this progression 
is most dismal, and possibly Browning had it in mind. Suspensions 
(line 20) are notes which are held over from one chord into another, and 
must be made according to certain strict musical rules. This holding o\er 
of a note always produces a dissonance, and must be followed by a concord, 
— in other words, a solution. Sevenths are very important dissonances in 
music, and a commiserating seventh (line 21) is most likely the > ariety called 
a minor seventh. Being a somewhat less mournful interval than the lesser 
thirds and the diminished sixths, whether real or imaginary, yet not so 
final as 'those solutions' which seem to put an end to all uncertainty, and 
therefore to life, they arouse in the listeners to Galuppi's playing a hope 
that life may last, although in a sort of dissonantal, Wagnerian fashion. 
The ' commiserating sevenths ' are closely connected with the ' dominant's 
persistence' (line 24). The dominant chord in music is the chord written 
on the fifth degree of the scale, and it almost always has a seventh added 
to it, and in a large percentage of cases is followed by the tonic, the chord 
on the first degree of the scale. Now, in fugue form a theme is first pre- 
sented in the tonic key, then the same theme is repeated in the dominant 
key, the latter being called the answer; after some development of the 
theme the fugue comes to what is called an episode, after which the theme 
is presented first, in the dominant. 'Hark! the dominant's persistence' 
alludes to this musical fact; but according to rule this domina \t must 
be answered in the tonic an octave above the first presentation of the theme, 
and 'So an octave struck the answer.' Thus the inexorable solution comes 
in after the dominant's persistence. Although life seemed possible with 
commiserating sevenths, the tonic, a resistless fate, strikes the answer that 
all must end." 

MY STAR 

This poem has been interpreted as having personal reference 
to Mrs. Browning; but there is no reason to set it apart from 
the other poems described by Browning as " always dramatic 
in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary 
persons." 

94, 4. — angled spar. "A prism of Iceland spar has the prop- 
erty of polarizing or dividing a ray of light into two parts. 
Suppose this polarized ray be passed through a plate of Iceland 
spar, at a certain angle, and a second prism of Iceland spar be 
rotated in front of it, different colors will be given out, comple- 
mentary tints being ninety degrees apart, and four times during 
the rotation the light will vanish completely. Some such 
experiment as this was probably in the poet's mind when he 
made the comparison with the angled spar." — Porter and 
Clarke. 



200 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 

The title ("The Threatening Tyrant") is taken from Horace, 
Odes III, iii: — 

Justum et tenacem proposti virum, 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 

Non vultus instantis tyranni, 

Mente quatit solida. 

Gladstone translates the passage: — 

The just man in his purpose strong, 
No madding crowd can turn to wrong. 
The forceful tyrant's brow and word 



His firm-set spirit cannot move. 



97, 70. — sprang to his feet. Before this he had squatted. 
See line 14. 

A PRETTY WOMAN 

Some natures, according to Browning, are incapable of love, 
and the only way is to take them as they are and make the 
best of them. 

98, 8. — keep you what they make you. Their own. 

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 

The utter devotion of this poem is, in Browning's view, char- 
acteristic of true love. 

104, 62. — Ten lines. Of history or biography. 

65. — the Abbey. Westminster Abbey, where England's 
heroes are commemorated. 

67-88.— Cf. In a Balcony, 664-7:— 

We live, and they experiment on life — 
Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof 
To overlook the farther. Let us be 
The thing they look at! 

THE PATRIOT 

In the first edition Brescia in Lombardy was mentioned as 
the scene of this story; but Browning stated that the hero is 
not Arnold of Brescia, as some of the critics surmised. 



NOTES 201 



MEMORABILIA 

" Things worth remembering." This poem is said to have 
been suggested to Browning by overhearing a man say in a 
shop that he had met and spoken to Shelley. By the metaphor 
of the eagle's feather, Browning conveys to the reader that if 
such a piece of good fortune had happened to him, it would 
have been enough to blot out all other incidents. As to the 
influence of Shelley on Browning's early work, see Introduction, 
pp. i and x. 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 

This is one of the most remarkable of Browning's shorter 
poems, whether regarded as a study of character or of art. It 
was written when he was living in Florence, in answer to a re- 
quest from a friend in England for a copy of the portrait of 
Andrea del Sarto and his wife in the Pitti Palace. Browning 
could not get one, and sent the poem instead. Mr. Ernest 
Radford thus describes the picture: — "The artist and his wife 
are presented at half length. Andrea turns towards her with a 
pleading expression on his face. . . . His right arm is round her; 
he leans forward as if searching her face for the strength that has 
gone from himself. . . . She holds the letter in her hand, and 
looks neither at that nor at him, but straight out of the canvas. 
And the beautiful face with the red-brown hair is passive and 
unruffled, and awfully expressionless. There is silent thunder 
in this face if there ever was, but there is no anger. It suggests 
only a very mild, and at the same time immutable determination 
to have her own way." 

Browning develops, in his favorite form of the dramatic 
monologue, the suggestion given by Andrea's portrait of him- 
self; for the details he is chiefly indebted to Vasari's Life of 
Andrea del Sarto, as will be seen from the following extracts 
(translation by Blashfield and Hopkins, with Mrs. Foster's 
notes): — "Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and 
more elevated mind, had be been as much distinguished for 
higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment 
in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, have been 
without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a 
sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered 



202 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

it impossible that those evidences of ardor and animation, which 
are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in 
him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that eleva- 
tion which, could it but have been added to the advantages 
wherewith he was endowed, would have rendered him a truly 
divine painter. ... At that time there was a most beautiful 
girl in the Via di San Gallo, who was married to a cap-maker, 
and who, though born of a poor and vicious father, carried 
about her as much pride and haughtiness as beauty and 
fascination. She delighted in trapping the hearts of men, and 
among others ensnared the unlucky Andrea, whose immoderate 
love for her soon caused him to neglect the studies demanded by 
his art, and in great measure to discontinue the assistance 
which he had given to his parents. Now it chanced that a 
sudden and grievous illness seized the husband of this woman, 
who rose no more from his bed, but died thereof. Without 
taking counsel of his friends therefore; without regard to the 
dignity of his art or the consideration due to his genius, and to 
the eminence he had attained with so much labor; withoi t a 
word, in short, to any of his kindred, Andrea took this Luciezia 
di Baccio del Fede, such was the name of the woman, to be his 
wife; her beauty appearing to him to merit thus much at his 
hands, and his love for her having more influence over him than 
the glory and honor towards which he had begun to make such 
hopeful advances. But when this news became known in 
Florence the respect and affection which his friends had 
previously borne to Andrea changed to contempt and disgust, 
since it appeared to them that the darkness of this disgrace had 
obscured for a time all the glory and renown obtained by his 
talents. But he destroyed his own peace as well as estranged 
his friends by this act, seeing that he soon became jealous, and 
found that he had besides fallen into the hands of an artful 
woman, who made him do as she pleased in all things. He 
abandoned his own poor father and mother, for example, and 
adopted the father and sisters of his wife in their stead; inso- 
much that all who knew the facts mourned over him, and he 
soon began to be as much avoided as he had previously been 
sought after." Andrea found this mode of life so oppressive 
that, on the advice of his friends, he put his wife in safe keeping 
and went to Paris, where he was richly rewarded by the King 
of France for his work. But a pitiful letter from his wife in- 
duced him to return. "Taking the money which the king con- 



NOTES 203 

fided to him for the purchase of pictures, statues and other fine 
things, he set off, therefore, having first sworn on the gospels to 
return in a few months. Arrived happily in Florence, he lived 
joyously with his wife for some time, making large presents to 
her father and sisters, but doing nothing for his own parents, 
whom he would not even see, and who, at the end of a certain 
period, ended their lives in great poverty and misery." Having 
spent the money entrusted to him in building a house and in- 
dulging himself in various other pleasures, Andrea was afraid to 
return to France, and remained in Florence in the very lowest 
position, " procuring a livelihood and passing his time as he 
best might." 

So says Vasari, who at one time was Andrea's pupil, and 
published his Lives of the Painters while Andrea's widow was 
still in Florence; but recent investigation has failed to reveal 
the slightest evidence in support of the charge of embezzlement 
made by Vasari against Andrea, and it has been generally dis- 
credited. 

110, 15. — Fiesole. The village on the top of the ridge over- 
looking the quarter of Florence in which Andrea lived. 

111, 25. — It saves a model. " Andrea rarely painted the 
countenance of a woman in any place that he did not avail 
himself of the features of his wife; and if at any time he took 
his model from any other face there was always a resemblance 
to hers in the painting, not only because he had this woman 
constantly before him and depicted her so frequently, but also 
and what is still more, because he had her lineaments engraven 
on his heart; it thus happens that almost all his female heads 
have a certain something which recalls that of his wife." — 
Vasari. 

32. — no one's. Not even his. 

36-45. — Lucrezia has lost only her first pride in her husband; 
he has lost all his youthful ambitions and aspirations, as the day 
loses its noontide splendor, and the glory of summer changes 
to the decay of autumn. 

43. — huddled more inside. The trees are huddled together 
within the convent wall, and have no room to grow; but they 
are, perhaps, safer — so, perhaps, too, is the painter in his own 
home, though he misses the inspiration and development that 
come from contact with the world. Andrea acquiesces in his 
seclusion, but he cannot help regretting his lost opportunities. 

113, 93. — Morello. A mountain near Florence. 



204 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

105. — the Urbinate. Raphael of Urbino, the most famous 
of Italian painters; he died in 1520, ten years before Andrea. 
Vasari says that Andrea copied a portrait by Raphael with such 
exactness that Raphael's own pupils, who had helped in the 
painting, could not tell the copy from the original. 

114, 130. — Agnolo. The great Italian painter usually called 
Michael Angelo in English; he was doubtless the " Someone" 
of line 76; Andrea refers to him again in line 184. 

150. — Fontainebleau. A royal palace not far from Paris. 

115, 166. — See quotation from Vasari above for Andrea's 
recall from France by his wife's importunities. 

173. — there. In your heart. 

174. — ere the triumph. Of my genius in art. 

116, 189-193. — Bocchi, in his Beauties of Florence, states that 
Michael Angelo said to Raphael, referring to Andrea: — " There 
is a little man in Florence, who, if he were employed upon such 
great works as have been given to you, would bring the sweat 
to your brow." 

199. — Lucrezia has interrupted to ask Andrea about whom 
and what he is talking. She is evidently paying no attention. 

209-10. — Mount Morello can no longer be seen, the lights on 
the city wall are lit, and the little owls, named in Italy from their 
call, Chiu, are crying; darkness is falling on the house, as on 
Andrea's life. 

212-18. — See above for the charge against Andrea of building 
a house for himself with the money entrusted to him by King 
Francis to buy pictures with. 

117, 220. — The cousin (or lover) who waits outside is the 
third character in the little drama — silent and unseen, but 
profoundly affecting the situation. 

118, 263. — Leonard. Leonardo da Vinci, the third great 
Italian painter of the time; he died the year before Raphael. 

266. — Andrea at .last acknowledges to himself that his wife 
has been a hindrance instead of a help, a drag preventing his 
ascent from the second rank to the first : but he prefers this to 
the sacrifice of giving her up . 

"DE GUSTIBUS — " 

The Latin proverb De gustibus non est disputandum, corres- 
ponds to the English one " There's no accounting for tastes." 
Browning says that if our preferences persist after death, his 
will be, not for England, but for Italy. 



NOTES 205 

119, 22. — cicala. The tree-cricket, often heard in Italy in the 
heat of summer. 

120, 36. — liver-wing. Right arm. The Bourbon rule in 
Southern Italy was exceedingly unpopular, and numerous at- 
tempts were made to cast it off; the king here referred to was 
Ferdinand II, whose cruelties were denounced by Gladstone in 
1851. He was succeeded by his son, who was expelled in I860, 
and Naples was incorporated with the new kingdom of Italy. 
Browning sympathized with all the Italians' attempts to regain 
their liberty and independence, even when they went the length 
of assassination. 

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL 

In the Church of St. Augustine at Fano, on the Adriatic, 
there is a picture called "The Guardian Angel," by Guercino, 
an Italian painter of the seventeenth century. It represents an 
angel with outspread wings embracing a kneeling child, whose 
hands he folds in prayer. 

121, 6. — another child. The poet himself. 
7. — retrieve. Bring back to the right way. 

14-16. — In the picture cherubs point to the opened heaven, 
and the child looks upward past the angel's head. 

18. — bird of God. This beautiful expression is translated 
from Dante's Purgatorio. 

122, 20-21. — The angel seems to be enfolding the child with 
the skirt of his robe, held in his left hand. 

39-40. — The angel's head is turned away, but the reason 
given is Browning's own. 

123, 46. — My angel with me, too. His wife. See line 54. 
54. — dear old friend. Alfred Domett, a much-prized friend 

of Browning's youth, who in 1842 settled in New Zealand. 

56. — Ancona. On the Italian coast, near Fano. Browning 
and his wife visited both places soon after their first settlement 
in Italy in 1846, and the poem was doubtless written at the 
time. Mrs. Browning writes of the visit to her friend, Miss 
Mitford: — "So we went to Ancona — a striking sea city, holding 
up against the brown rocks, and elbowing out the purple tides — 
beautiful to look upon. An exfoliation of the rock itself you 
would call the houses that seem to grow there — so identical is 
the color and character." 



206 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

This poem " exhibits something of the life of the Scaligers 
and the Casaubons, of many an early scholar, like Roger 
Bacon's friend Pierre de Maricourt, working at some region of 
knowledge, and content to labor without fame so long as he 
mastered thoroughly whatever he undertook." — Contemporary 
Review, IV, 135. 

The scholars are bearing their master to his tomb in one of 
the Italian hill-cities, perched on the top of the rocks, like 
Orvieto or Perugia. 

124, 3. — croft. Enclosed tilled or pasture land. — thorpe. — 
Little village. 

125, 34. — Apollo. The classical ideal of manly beauty. His 
statues usually represent him holding the lyre. 

39. — Moaned he. Did he moan? 

45. — the world. Of classical lore, which was bent on escaping. 

126, 56. — the curtain. Of the play of life. 

68. — Sooner. Before he had gathered all books had to give. 

127, 86.— Calculus. The stone. 
88. — Tussis. Cough. 

95. — soul-hydroptic. "Every lust is a kind of hydropic dis- 
temper, and the more we drink the more we shall thirst." — 
Tillotson, quoted by Webster. hydroptic, dropsical. 

96-100.— Cf. Abt Vogler:— "On the earth the broken arcs; 
in the heaven, a perfect round." 

113-124. — Cf. Rabbi ben Ezra, stanzas xxiii-xxv, pp. 144-145. 

128, 129-131.— Hoti, . . . Oun, . . . De. Greek particles, 
meaning respectively "that," "therefore," "towards." As to 
the last, Browning wrote to the editor of the London Daily 
News on Nov. 20, 1874, as follows: — 

"In a clever article you speak of 'the doctrine of the enclitic De' — 
'which with all deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact, does not exist.' 
No, not to Mr. Browning: but pray defer to Heir Buttmann, whose fifth 
list of 'enclitics ' ends 'with the inseparable De,' — or to Curtius, whose fifth 
list ends also with 'De (meaning ' towards, ' and as a demonstrative append- 
age).' That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated ' De, mean- 
ing but,' was the 'Doctrine' which the Grammarian bequeathed to those 
capable of receiving it." 

ONE WAY OF LOVE 

This sublime devotion is characteristic of Browning's ideal 
of love. Cf. The Last Ride Together. 



NOTES 207 



ONE WORD MORE 

A special interest attaches to this poem because it is the only 
one addressed by Browning, directly and avowedly, to his wife, 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was originally appended to 
the collection of poems, called Men and Women (1855). 
Browning uses the sonnets written by Raphael and a portrait 
painted by Dante to illustrate the desire of the artist to show 
his personal affection in some other way than that of his 
familiar craft, which has become professional and belongs to 
the world, so that everybody feels entitled to criticize. But 
as the poet cannot paint pictures, or carve statues, or make 
music to show his love, a semblance of resource remains in the 
use of a slightly different form of art from that which he com- 
monly practises. Instead of writing dramatically, he may 
write, for once in his own person; for just as, according to the 
ancient myth, the moon would turn to her lover a side unseen 
by other mortals, so the poet has two soul-sides, " one to face 
the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her." 
While he says this of himself, he likes to think it of her, his 
"moon of poets." Her poetry is the world's side, and he too 
admires her from that point of view; but the best is when 
he leaves the standpoint of literary appreciation for the more 
intimate relation of personal knowledge and affection. Then 
it is that he realizes the love that Raphael sought to express by 
his sonnets and Dante by his picture. 

130, 5. — a century of sonnets. Guido Reni had a book of 
100 drawings of Raphael's, but Raphael is only known to have 
made four sonnets. Raphael never married, but he was very 
much in love with a certain lady, who has been identified, not 
very convincingly, with the original of one or other of the por- 
traits attributed to his hand. 

131, 22-24. — The Sistine Madonna is now in the Dresden 
Art Gallery, the Madonna di Foligno is in the Vatican at Rome. 
"The Madonna at Florence is that called del Granduca, which 
represents her as l appearing to a votary in a vision ' — so say the 
describes; it is in the earlier manner, and very beautiful. I 
think I meant La Belle Jardiniere — but am not sure — for the pict- 
ure in the Louvre." (Browning to W. J. Rolfe ). The Louvre 
Madonna is seated in the midst of a garden, in which there are 
lilies. All these are among the most famous works of Raphael. 



208 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

27. — Guido Reni. A celebrated Italian painter about a 
century later than Raphael. See note on line 5. 

32.— Dante. The first great Italian poet (1265-1321), who 
in The Divine Comedy attached eternal opprobrium to his 
enemies by assigning to them conspicuous places in Hell. 
Stanzas v, vi, and vii refer to a passage in his Vita Nuova, in 
which he has idealized his love for Beatrice, whom he had 
known as a young girl: — "On that day which fulfilled the year 
since my lady had been made of the citizens of eternal life; 
remembering me of her as I sat alone, I betook myself to draw 
the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets. And while 
I did thus, chancing to turn my head, I perceived that some 
were standing beside me to whom I should have given courteous 
welcome, and that they were observing what I did: also I 
learned afterwards that they had been there a while before I 
perceived them. Perceiving whom, I rose for salutation and 
said: ' Another was with me/ Afterwards, when they had 
left me, I set myself again to the same occupation, to wit, to the 
drawing figures of angels." (Section 35, Rossetti's translation.) 
It will be noticed that Browning's interpretation of the incident 
goes somewhat beyond the original, which gives no indication 
that those who interrupted Dante were people he scarified in 
the Inferno. 

33. — Beatrice. Four syllables — bd ah trt' tshe. 

132, 57. — Bice. Two syllables — be' tshe. A contraction of 
endearment of Beatrice. 

133, 74-93. — There are two accounts in the Pentateuch of the 
smiting of the rock by Moses. — Exodus xvii. 1-7 and Numbers 
xx. 2-11. The latter reads: "And Moses and Aaron gathered 
the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto 
them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this 
rock? . . . And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Be- 
cause ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the 
children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation 
into the land which I have given them." Here, again, Browning 
has allowed his imagination to play round the original record. 

94-5. — When the children of Israel were rebellious against 
Moses, they cried, "Would to God we had died by the hand of 
the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots" 
(Exodus xvi. 3). 

97. — Exodus xxxiv. 29-35. cloven, because, following the 
Latin translation of this passage, the early painters represented 



NOTES 209 

Moses with two horns on his forehead. The original means 
to shine out or dart forth like rays of light. 

134, 101-2. — Moses married Zipporah, Jethro's daughter 
(Exodus ii. 16-21), and an Ethiopian woman (Numbers xii. 1). 

121. — fresco. Painting in fresh plaster, usually done on the 
inside wall of a church. 

125. — missal -marge. The margin of a prayer book. 

135, 136-8. — Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, Lippo, Roland and 
Andrea were among the characters in Men and Women, orig- 
inally fifty in number. 

143. — how I speak. The personal instead of the dramatic 
mode of expression. 

145. — Here in London. The poem was written in London in 
September, 1855. 

150. — Samminiato. The common pronunciation of San 
Miniato, an old church, surrounded by cypress trees, overlook- 
ing Florence. 

136, 160. — mythos. The old myth or story of the love of 
Diana, the moon-goddess, for the mortal Endymion. 

163. — Zoroaster (589-513 B.C.) Founder of the Persian religion 
and a famous astronomer. 

164.— Galile'o (1564-1642). Professor at Padua, and one of 
the founders of modern science. After being condemned by the 
church, he continued his studies in his house at Florence, which 
overlooks the city from the same side as San Miniato. 

165. — Homer. In allusion to the Hymn to the Moon. 

— Keats. — The author of Endymion. Browning expressed 
special admiration for him in the poem entitled "Popularity." 

172-9. — Exodus xxiv. 9-11: "Then went up Moses and 
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: 
And they saw the God of Israel : and there was under his feet 
as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the 
body of heaven in his clearness . . . also they saw God, and 
did eat and drink." 

RABBI BEN EZRA 

Ibn Ezra, or Abenezra (1092-1167), was a great Jewish scholar, 
poet, philosopher, and physician, who wandered over Europe, 
Asia, and Africa in pursuit of knowledge. As will be seen from 
the notes, his writings contain some of the views expressed by 
Browning's sage. 



210 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

138, 1. — The Rabbi seems to be at the end of middle age, just 
where old age begins. He looks back to youth, forward to old 
age. 

4. — A poem of Abenezra's, quoted by Dr. Michael Sachs, has 
the same thought: "In deiner Hand liegt mein Geschick." 

Stanzas ii and iii should be taken together. The sense is: 
" I do not remonstrate because youth, amassing flowers, sighed 
. . . " He does not find fault with the foolish ambitions of his 
youth, for these aspirations, though they are vain, are what 
distinguish man from the beasts. This thought is expressed by 
Abenezra in his Commentary on Job xxxv. 11: "Man has the 
sole privilege of becoming superior to the beast and the fowl." 

139, 25-30. — Stanza v expresses a favorite thought of Brown- 
ing's. Cf. A Death in the Desert, 576-8: — 

Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
Not God's and not the beasts': God is, they are, 
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 

40-42.— Cf. Saul, lines 160 and 295. 

140, 48. — soul on its lone way. "The soul of man is called 
lonely because it is separated during its union with the body 
from the universal soul." — Abenezra *s Commentary on Psalm 
xxii. 22. 

57.— Cf. Saul, line 242. 

141, 67-72. — For the union of sensuousness and spirituality, 
cf. Evelyn Hope and note on it above. 

145, 151.— Potter's wheel. Cf. Isaiah lxiv. 8: "We are the 
clay and thou our Potter." This is a favorite scriptural and 
oriental metaphor, used also by Quarles and in Fitzgerald's 
translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but by no 
previous poet with such deep significance as here. 

PROSPICE 

"Look forward." This nobie defiance of death was written 
in the autumn after Browning lost his wife, and appeared first 
in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1864. 

148, 19. — life's arrears. All the pain that a man might 
fairly have expected to suffer in life, but missed. 

23. — fiend-voices. The ancient belief was that the soul at 
the moment of separation from the body is the object of a 
struggle between the angels, whose office is to bear away the 



NOTES 211 

freed spirit (Luke xvi. 22) and the powers of darkness who 
strive to snatch it from salvation. For this reason fervent 
prayers are offered for a soul on the point of departure. The 
Litany in the Book of Common Prayer contains a petition for 
deliverance "in the hour of death," and the following is from 
the office for the dying in the Roman Breviary: "Cedat tibi 
teterimus satanas cum satellitibus suis: in adventu tuo te 
comitantibus Angelis contremiscat atque in aeternae noctis 
chaos immane diffugiat. . . . Confundantur igitur et erubes- 
cant omnes tartareae legiones, et ministri satanae iter tuum 
impedire non audeant " (Sykes). 

149, 27-28. — Browning had a strong faith in immortality, 
and repeatedly expressed it in both prose and verse. He said: 
"I know I shall meet my dearest friends again." 

YOUTH AND ART 

This is a light, humorous expression of Browning's favorite 
doctrine, "all for love, and the world well lost." The singer 
who reflects on the chances of her youth has gained worldly 
success, but she has missed the great prize of life 

150, 8.— Gibson, John (1790-1866). A celebrated sculptor. 
12. — Grisi. Giulia Grisi, a famous opera singer of the same 

period. 

151, 18. — The young students were content perforce with the 
scant diet of the Hindoo ascetics. 

31. — E in alt. The high E, which is difficult for a singer to 
reach. 

32. — chromatic scale. A scale with semi-tone intervals. 

153, 58. — bals-pares. Fancy dress balls. 

60. — R. A. Member of the Royal Academy, at the Board of 
which he meets the Prince of Wales. 

APPARENT FAILURE 

The cheery tone of this expression of Browning's optimism 
may be compared with Tennyson's less confident faith: — 

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 

— In Memoriam, Hv 

154, 3. — your Prince. Louis Napoleon, only son of Napoleon 
III, was born in the spring of 1856. Browning was in Paris 



212 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

during the summer of the same year. The poem was published 
in Dramatis Persona (1864). 

7-8. — The Congress of Paris met in 1856, at the close of the 
Crimean War, to discuss important issues in European politics. 
Prince Gortschakoff represented Russia; Cavour, then Prime 
Minister of Piedmont, pleaded the cause of united Italy, and 
Buol, the Austrian Foreign Minister, resisted any modification of 
the existing state of affairs, which gave Austria supreme control. 

12. — Vaucluse. A village on the Sorgue (a tributary of the 
Rhone) where the great Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) once 
made his home. 

14. — debt. What is due. As Petrarch's name preserves the 
fame of Vaucluse and of the Sorgue, so Browning will pay his 
obligations to Paris by commemorating the Morgue, which, he 
says with a touch of irony, has made the Seine famous. 

155, 39. — the Tuileries. At that time the palace of the 
Emperor at Paris. 

44. — what no Republic missed. The equality of death. 

HERVE RIEL 

Browning was in France when it was invaded by Prussia in 
1870, and escaped from the country with some difficulty before 
the outbreak of the disorders which followed the collapse of the 
French resistance. Desiring to express his sympathy for the 
sufferers by the siege of Paris, he sold this poem to Cornhill 
Magazine for £100, which he gave as a subscription to the Relief 
Fund. It was written in 1867 and first published in 1871. 
The incident it relates was at first denied in France, but the 
records of the admiralty of the time proved that Browning was 
correct, except in one small detail : the reward Herve Riel asked 
and received was " un conge absolu" — a holiday for the rest of 
his life. 

157, 1. — the Hogue. Cap La Hogue, where the French fleet 
was attacked in 1692 by the English and Dutch, and forced to 
retire. The expedition aimed at the restoration of James II, 
who watched the defeat from the Norman coast. 

5. — St. Malo, at the mouth of the Ranee River, in Brittany, has 
a harbor which is described as "safe, but difficult of approach. " 
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a flourishing 
port, and from it Jacques Cartier sailed in 1535 to explore the 
River St. Lawrence. 



NOTES 213 

— the Ranee. A small stream with picturesque steep banks. 
The town is situated on a rock between the harbor and the 
mouth of the river. 

158, 18. — twelve and eighty. French, quatre-vingt-douze. 
30. — Plymouth Sound. In the West of England, an import- 
skit harbor and naval station. 

159, 43. — pressed. Forced to serve. 
— Tourville. The French admiral. 

44. — Croisickese. Of Croisic, a little fishing village of Brit- 
tany, where Browning liked to stay. See the title of the next 
poem in this selection. It was no doubt at Croisic that 
Browning picked up the story. 

46. — Malouins. Men of St. Malo. 

49. — Greve. La Grande Greve, the sandy shallows of the 
coast about St. Malo, especially to the east. 

53. — Solidor. A small harbor near the mouth of the 
Ranee, beside the town of St. Servan. A fort of the same 
name defends it. 

160, 75. — profound (here used as a noun). Depths. 

161, 92. — rampired. Protected by ramparts or fortifications. 
95. — for. Instead of. 

163, 135. — the Louvre. A famous palace at Paris, now used 
as an art museum. On its external walls there are eighty-six 
statues of notable Frenchmen, but not, of course, one of the 
forgotten hero, Herve Riel. 

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 

The Prologue and the Epilogue are connected with the main 
poem (which is here omitted) only by the thought, common to all 
three, that love is a necessary part of the poet's life and art. 
The Prologue may cause a little difficulty to begin with by its 
extraordinary conciseness, but this only adds to its charm when 
the meaning has been grasped. The grammatical construction 
and the relation of the stanzas to each other are indicated in the 
following prose rendering: " As a bank of moss stands bare till 
some May morning it is made beautiful by the sudden growth 
of the violets; as the night sky is dark and louring till a bright 
star pierces the concealing clouds; so the world seemed to hem 
in my life with disgrace till your face appeared to brighten it with 
the smile of God — the divine gift of love." 

In the Epilogue it is a young girl who repeats to the poet the 
" pretty tale " he has once told her, and makes her own applica- 



214 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

tion of its significance. The story is found in Greek literature 
both in prose and in verse. 

166, 50. — Here, as in lines 15 and 21, the poet has attempted 
to interrupt. 

167, 77. — Lotte. The pet name of Charlotte Buff, upon whom 
Goethe modelled the heroine of The Sorrows of Young Wer- 
ther. The reference here, however, is rather to Goethe's way 
of treating women in general than to the particular case of 
Lotte, for she was already engaged to be [married when he met 
her. 

168, 100-2. — The sweet lilt of the treble was supplied by the 
chirping of the cricket, when its absence would have allowed 
the predominance of the sombre bass. Cf. lines 112-4. 

169, 120. — (There, enough!) To what interruption of the 
poet's does this reply? 

PHEIDIPPIDES 

This is Browning's romantic setting of an incident of the 
Persian war which is thus recounted by the Greek historian 
Herodotus (VI, 105. Rawlinson's translation): — 

"And first, before they left Athens, the generals sent off to 
Sparta a herald, one Pheidip / pides, who was by birth an Athe- 
nian, and by birth and practice a trained runner. This man, 
according to the account which he gave to the Athenians on 
his return, when he was near Mount Parthenium, above Tegea, 
fell in with the god Pan, who called him by his name, and bade 
him ask the Athenians ' wherefore they neglected him so entirely, 
when he was kindly disposed towards them, and had often 
helped them in times past, and would do so again in time to 
come?' The Athenians, entirely believing in the truth of this 
report, as soon as their affairs were once more in good order, 
set up a temple to Pan under the Acropolis, and, in return for 
the message which I have recorded, established in his honor 
yearly sacrifices and a torch-race. 

" On the occasion of which we speak, when Pheidippides was 
sent by the Athenian generals, and, according to his own account 
saw Pan on his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next day 
after quitting the city of Athens. Upon his arrival he went 
before the rulers, and said to them: — 

"'Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians beseech you to 
hasten to their aid, and not allow that state, which is the most 
ancient in all Greece, to be enslaved by the barbarians. Eretria, 



NOTES 215 

look you, is already carried away captive, and Greece weakened 
by the loss of no mean city.' 

"Thus did Pheidippides deliver the message committed to 
him. And the Spartans wished to help the Athenians, but were 
unable to give them any present succor, as they did not like 
to break their established law. It was the ninth day of the first 
decade, and they could not march out of Sparta on the ninth, 
when the moon had not reached the full. So they waited for 
the full of the moon." 

It will be seen that the original story makes no mention of a 
reward promised by Pan to Pheidippides. This was Brown- 
ing's own invention, following a later tradition. In connection 
with the Marathon race at the Olympic games this was the sub- 
ject of a considerable discussion, to which Professor Ernest A. 
Gardner contributed the following note as to Pheidippides: 
" His great exploit, as recorded by Herodotus, was to run from 
Athens to Sparta within two days, for the practical purpose of 
summoning the Spartans to help against the Persian invader. 
The whole Athenian army made a forced march back to 
Athens immediately after the battle, also for a practical pur- 
pose; but there is no reason to suppose that Pheidippides or 
any one else ran the distance. The tale of his bearing the mes- 
sage of victory and falling dead when he arrived is probably an 
invention of some later rhetorician; it is referred to by Lucian, 
as* well as by Robert Browning, but the two authorities are 
about of equal value for an occurrence of the fifth century b.c. 
It is most unlikely that Herodotus would have omitted such a 
story if it had been current in his time." 

xaipere, viK&fxev, the Greek words prefixed by Browning to 
the poem, form the message which Plutarch and Lucian attri- 
bute to the dying runner after Marathon. Browning translates 
them " Rejoice; we conquer! " and in lines 113-114 makes effec- 
tive use of the fact that x a ^P €T€ ("Hail!" or "be of good 
cheer! ") was also the customary form of salutation with the 
Greeks. Here again he was indebted to a suggestion derived 
from Lucian. 

170, 4. — Her of the aegis and spear. Athene. — aegis, shield. 

5. — ye of the bow and the buskin. Apollo and Artemis. 
— buskin, laced boot. 

9. — Archons. Rulers or magistrates. — tettix. The golden 
grasshopper worn by Athenians to show that they were 
autochthons (natives of the country). 



216 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 

11. — Crowned with the myrtle. This still refers to Archons. 
Browning is strictly accurate in these points of detail. 

171, 18. — water and earth. The emblems of subjection. 
This demand was made in 493 b. c. The invading Persians 
were defeated at Marathon three years later. 

19. — Eretria. The chief city of the island of Eubcea, a little 
north of Athens. 

20. — Hellas. Greek civilization regarded as a whole. 

25-40. — Herodotus, as quoted above, says: "So they 
waited for the full of the moon/' Grote ascribes the delay of 
the Spartans to conservatism, Rawlinson to envy; there was 
long-standing jealousy between Athens and Sparta, who were 
rivals for the leadership of Hellas. Sparta later sent 2,000 men, 
who arrived after the battle. 

32-33. — Phoibos. Olumpos. Browning preferred to retain 
the Greek spelling instead of the Latinized forms "Phoebus" 
and "Olympus." 

172, 47. — filleted. Adorned for sacrifice with wreaths and 
ribbons. 

173, 52. — Parnes. In North Attica. But according to 
Herodotus, as quoted above, Pan appeared to Pheidippides 
near Mount Parthenium in Argolis. This would be on his way 
from Athens to Sparta: Parnes would not. Professor John 
Macnaughton suggests that Browning made the change de- 
liberately. "He must have an Attic hill at all costs, when 
what he wants to say is that it is the spirit of her own mountains, 
her own autochthonous vigor, which is going to save Athens. 
He consciously sacrifices, in a small and obvious point, literal 
accuracy to the larger truth." — Queen' 's Quarterly, April, 1903. 

62. — Erebos. The darkness under the earth, — Erebus. 

174, 72-80. — After Marathon, the Athenians built a temple to 
Pan and established yearly sacrifices and a torch-race in 
acknowledgment of the help the god had given them in the 
battle by affecting the Persians with "panic" — the headlong 
fear Pan was supposed to inspire. 

83. — Fennel. Marathon, the name of the place where the 
battle was fought, is also Greek for fennel. This touch is 
Browning's own. 

175, 87. — on the razor's edge. In a critical position — a 
proverbial phrase in Greek. 

89. — Miltiades. The leading Athenian citizen of the time and 
commander of the forces at Marathon. 



NOTES 217 

176, 106. — Akropolis. The citadel of Athens. 

109. — the Fennel-field. Marathon. See note on line 83. 

Pheidippides is in a measure of Browning's own, composed of 
dactyls and spondees, each line ending in a half foot or pause. 
It gives the impression of firm, continuous, and rhythmic 
emotion, and is generally fitted to convey the exalted sentiment 
and heroic character of the poem. — Mrs. Orr. 

The metrical scheme should be carefully analysed. Dr. D. G. 
Brunton uses this poem as an illustration of Browning's employ- 
ment of rhyme " merely as a means of heightening his secondary 
rhythm. The rhyming words are so far apart that we are 
aware only of a faint melodious echo. The always artificial and 
somewhat mechanical effect of rhyme is thus avoided, while its 
rhythmic essence is retained." 

ECHETLOS 

This is a poetical treatment of another Greek legend of the 
same battle of Marathon (b. c. 490), which saved Greek civiliza- 
tion from overthrow by the Persians. The original story is 
found in Pausanias, Description of Greece, I, 32: — "And it 
chanced, they say, that in the battle a man of rustic appear- 
ance and dress appeared, who slew many of the Persians with a 
ploughshare, and vanished after the fight: and when the Athe- 
nians made enquiry of the oracle, the god gave no other answer, 
but bade them honor the god Echetlceus" that is, the holder of 
the ploughshare. 

717, 2. — Barbarians. So the Greeks called all the rest of the 
world. 

178, 15. — Polemarch (three syllables — rhymes with "stark"). 
The Athenian archon or magistrate who had charge of the 
military affairs of the state. Kallimachos, who held this office 
in b. c. 490, was slain at Marathon. 

16. — phalanx. The battle-array of the Greek heavy infantry, 
— ranks eight to sixteen deep. 

18. — Sakian . . . Mede. Subject races in the Persian empire. 

179, 28-30. — Miltiades and Themistokles, who had both been 
held in high honor by the Athenians for their services during the 
Persian war, afterwards fell into disgrace. Miltiades died of a 
wound received at Paros, which he had besieged from corrupt 
motives; Themistokles, convicted of treason, fled to the 
Persian Court at Sardis, and became a satrap or officer in the 
service of his hereditary enemies. 



218 BROWNING'S SHORTER POEMS 



WHY I AM A LIBERAL 

In the English political crisis of 1885, when the extension of 
the suffrage was being hotly debated, a question in this form 
was addressed to several leading men of letters. This sonnet 
is Browning's answer. 

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 

We have given at the foot of each poem the date of its publi- 
cation, and the volume to which this little poem is the Epilogue 
bears the date 1890; it was actually issued in London on Dec. 
12, 1889, the day of Browning's death at Venice. "The report 
of his illness had quickened public interest in the forthcoming 
work, and his son had the satisfaction of telling him of its already 
realized success, while he could still receive a warm, if momen- 
tary pleasure from the intelligence." (Mrs. Orr.) Browning 
prepared the volume for publication while staying in the Asolo 
villa of his friend Mrs. Arthur Bronson, to whom it is dedicated. 
The fanciful title is derived from the Italian verb asolare — "to 
disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random " — popularly 
ascribed, Browning tells us, to Cardinal Bembo, who was Queen 
Cornaro's secretary, and in his dialogue, Gli Asolani, described 
the discussions on platonic love and kindred subjects the little 
court at Asolo used to indulge in. To Mrs. Bronson Browning 
justified the title in the following sentence: "I use it for love 
of the place and in requital of your pleasant assurance that an 
early poem of mine first attracted you thither." This was, no 
doubt, Pippa Passes, for which, and further particulars as to 
Browning's connection with Asolo, see Introduction, pp. xiv 
and xx. 

The Epilogue is a final expression of Browning's profound 
belief in a future life of hopeful activity. When reading the 
poem in proof, he said of the third stanza: — "It almost looks 
like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it, but it's 
the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand." 

As in life he had faith in right, so in death — which only fools 
think of as a prison of the soul — he would be, not pitied, but 
encouraged by the good wishes of those who are working in the 
world. 

181, 17. — the unseen. The poet himself after death. 



INDEX TO THE NOTES 



Abt Vogler, 206 

Adriatic, 198 

aegis, 215 

Aershot, 189 

Age of the Despots, 187 

Akropolis, 217 

Ancona, 205 

Andrea del Sarto, 201, 209 

angled spar, 199 

Apollo, 215 

Apparent Failure, 211 

archons, 215 

Artemis, 215 

Asolando, 218 

Asolo, 183, 218 

Athene, 215 

Atlantic Monthly, 210 

Bacchus, 196 

bals-pares, 211 

barbarians, 217 

Beatrice, 208 

Bells and Pomegranates, 186 

Bice (contr. of Beatrice, q. v.) 

bird of God, 205 

Boccaccio, 197 

Bocchi, Beauties of Florence, 204 

Book of Common Prayer, 211 

Boom, 189 

Boston Browning Society Papers, 195 

Bourbon rule in Italy, 205 

Boy and the Angel, The, 192 

Brancepeth, 186 

Breviary, 211 

Brewer, E. C., 198 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 194, 

207, 210 
Brunton, Dr. D. G., 217 
buskin, 215 

Cadiz Bay, 192 

Caesar, Julius, 187 

calculus, 206 

Cape St. Vincent, 192 

carles, 185 

Cavalier, 185, 186 

Cavalier Tunes, 184 

Charles Albert of Savoy, 190, 191 

chromatic scale, 211 

cicala, 205 

Cicero, 197 

Claret, 187 

Claus of Innsbruck, 188 

clavichord, 198 



Cleon, 209 
cloven, 208 
Congress of Paris, 212 
Contemporary Review, 206 
Cook, Professor A. S., 194 
Cooke, George Willis, 195 
Cornaro, Caterina, 183 
Corson, Professor Hiram, 187 
Cornhill Magazine, 212 
Count Gismond, 188 
Cristina, 195 
Croisickese, 213 
Cromwell, Oliver, 184, 186 
crop-headed, 185 
crypt, 191 

Dalhem, 189 

Dante Alighieri, 197; Purgatorio, 205; 

The Divine Comedy, Vita Nuova, 

208 
David, 193 
de, 206 

Death in the Desert, A, 210 
"De Gustibus—," 192, 204 
diligence, 196 
dome-spire, 189 
Dramatic Lyrics, 186 
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, 192, 

194 
Dramatis Person.oe, 212 
Diiffeld, 189 
duomo, 191 

E in alt, 211 

Echetlos, 217 

Epilogue to Asolando, 218 

equality of death, 212 

Erebos, 216 

Eretria, 216 

Essais Historiques sur Paris, 192 

Este, House of, 187 

Evelyn Hope, 195, 210 

Fano, 205 

fennel field, 216, 217 

Ferrara, 187 

fiend voices, 210 

Fiennes, John, 185 

Fiesole, 203 

filleted, 216 

Fisher, L. A., 196 

Fitzgerald, Edward, 210 

flag-bird, 188 

Fleischer, Rabbi Charles, 194 



219 



220 



INDEX TO THE NOTES 



Fontainebleau, 204 
Fra Angelico, 187 
fresco, 209 

Galileo, 209 

Galuppi, Baldassare, 198 

Gardiner, S. R., 186 

Gardner, Professor E. A., 215 

Ghent, 189 

Gibraltar, 192 

Gibson, John, 211 

Gladstone, W. E., 200, 205 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 214 

Grammarian's Funeral, A, 206 

Green, J. R., 185 

Greve, 213 

Grisi, Giulia, 211 

Guardian Angel, The, 205 

Hampden, John, 185 

Hasselt, 189 

Hazelrig, Sir Arthur, 185 

Hebron, 194 

Hellas, 216 

Herodotus, 214, 216 

Herve Riel, 212 

History of the English People, 185 

History of the Great Civil War, 186 

Hock, 187 

Hogue, 212 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad, 192 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea, 189, 192 

Homer, Hymn to the Moon, 209 

Hood's Magazine, 192 

Horace, 200 

hoti, 206 

"How They Brought the Good News," 

188, 192 
Hunt, Leigh, 193 
hydroptic, 206 

immortality, Browning's faith in, 211 
In a Balcony, 200 
Incident of the French Camp, 188 
Innsbruck, 188 
Instans Tyrannus, 200 
"Ironsides," 184, 186 
Italian in England, The, 190 
Ixion, 193 

jerboa, 194 

jesses, 183 

Juda Leonem, 193 

Kallimachos, 217 

Karshish, 209 

Keats, John, Endymion, 209 

Lannes, 188 

Last Ride Together, The, 200, 206 

Leonardo da Vinci, 204 

liberals, 197 

life's arrears, 210 



Lippo Lippi, 209 

liver-wing, 205 

Lokeren, 189 

London Daily News, 206 

Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, 194 

Looz, 189 

Lost Leader, The, 191 

Lotte, 214 

Louvre, 213 

Love among the Ruins, 195 

Lovers' Quarrel, A, 198 

Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, 202, 203, 

204 
lyric Apollo, 206 

Macnaughton, Professor John, 216 

Macready, Willie, 186 

Malouins, 213 

Marathon, 215, 216, 217 

Marot, Clement, 193 

Mecheln, 189 

Mede, 217 

Memorabilia, 201 

Men and Women, 194 

Metternich, 191 

Michelangelo, 204 

Miller, Joaquin, 189 

Miltiades, 216, 217 

missal-marge, 209 

Morello, 203 

morgue, 212 

Moselle, 187 

My Star, 199 

myrtle, 215 

mythos, 209 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 188 
Napoleon, Louis, 211 
Nemean, 193 
New Italian Sketches, 196 
Norbert, 209 
Nottingham, 184, 185 
nuncheon, 187 

obsequies' knell, 185 

Olumpos, 216 

Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat, 210 

One Way of Love, 206 

One Word More, 207 

optimism, Browning's, 211 

Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, Handbook to the 

Works of Robert Browning, 188, 

190, 217, 218 
oun, 206 
Ovid, 193 
Oxford Magazine, 190 

paries, 185 

Parleying s, 184 

Parnes, 216 

Patriot, The, 200 

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 217 

penance, 197 



INDEX TO THE NOTES 



221 



phalanx, 217 

Pheidippides, 214 

Phoibos, 216 

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 186 

Pippa Passes, 183, 192, 218 

pique, 189 

Platonism, 195 

Plymouth Sound, 213 

Polemarch, 217 

Porter and Clark, Poems of Robert 

Browning, 190, 194, 198, 199 
potter's wheel, 210 
pressed, 213 
Pretty Woman, A, 200 
Prince Rupert, 185 
profound, 213 
prone, 188 
Prospice, 210 
Pulcinello-trumpet, 197 
Pym, John, 185 

Quarles, Francis, 210 
Queen's Quarterly, 216 

R. A., 211 

Rabbi ben Ezra, 206, 209 
rampired, 213 
Ranee, 213 
Raphael 204, 207 
Ratisbon, 188 
razor's edge, 216 
Reni, Guido, 207, 208 
Rhenish, 187 
Roland, 209 
Ronsard, Peter, 193 
Roundhead, 185 
rouse, 186 

Sachs, Dr. Michael, 210 

St. Croix, Poullain de, 192 

St. Jerome, 197 

St. Malo, 212 

Sakian, 217 

Samminiato, 209 

Saul, 193, 210 

Schiller, 193 

Scripture reference, 193, 194, 208, 209, 

210, 211 
seven swords, 197 
Shakespeare, William, 185 
sheathes, 188 



Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 201 

Shylock's Bridge, 198 

snarls, 185 

Solidor, 213 

Sorrows of Young Werther, The, 214 

soul on its lone way, 210 

sprang to his feet, 200 

Statue and the Bust, The, 195 

stiver, 187 

Strafford, 184, 186 

Sykes, Professor F. H., Poems of 

Tennyson and Browning, 196 
Symonds, J. A., 187, 196 

ten lines, 200 

Tenebrae, 191 

Tennyson, Lord, 211 

tettix, 215 

Themistokles, 217 

theorbo, 193 

Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 198 

tombstones, 186 

Tongres, 189 

Tourville, 213 

Trafalgar, 192 

trepanned, 187 

Tuileries, 212 

tussis, 206 

twelve and eighty, 213 

Two Poets of Croisic, The, 213 

Up at a Villa, Down in the City, 195 
Urbinate, 204 

Vane, Sir Henry, 185 
Vasari, Giorgio, 201 
Vaucluse, 212 

Venienti occurrite morbo, 193 
Vergil, 190, 196 
vin-de-Grave, 187 

water and earth, 216 
Westminster Abbey, 200 
Why I am a Liberal, 218 
Woman's Last Word, A, 197 
Wordsworth, William, 191 

Youth and Art, 211 

Zipporah, 209 
Zoroaster, 209 



JAN 30 1909 



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